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no(f!:- 



THE 



LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



Hon. Henry Wilson 



BY 

HON. THOMAS RUSSELL, 

COLLECTOR OF THE PORT OF BOSTON ; 
AND 

REV. ELIAS NASON, 

FOE MANY YEARS THE PASTOR OF MR. WILSON. 



^^'-:^f 



BOSTON : 
PUBLISHED BY B. B. RUSSELL, 55 CORNHILL. 

PORTLAND, ME.: JOHN RUSSELL. PHILADELPHIA: H. C. 

JOHNSON. DETROIT: R. D. S. TYLER. SAN 

FRANCISCO : A. L. BANCRCU''T & CO. 

1872. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, 

By E. B. RUSSELL, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washlngtoi 



Botton : 
Rand, Avery, &• Co., Stereotypers and Printers. 



^^^ 



5^ 



THE WORKING-MEN OF AMERICA 

LIP^E OF A WORKING-MAN 

IS 
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE. 



A STATESMAN eminent for patriotism and integrity is a 
national instructor. The record of his life, his services, 
and his opinions, is, ta some extent, an exposition of the spirit 
and progress of the people whom he represents; and the people 
have the right to claim it, not only as a memorial of the past, 
but as an inspiration for the present, and a light for times to 
come. 

Pre-eminently may this be asserted in regard to the distin- 
guished man whose biography we now purpose to write. 

Holding himself steady to his noble purposes, he has been so 
prominent an actor in the remarkable events of the last twenty 
years, he has been so identified with the life of the republic, 
that an account of his official career becomes, in some respects, 
the key to the history of the country for that period ; while in the 
development of the principles of freedom which he makes, in 
the consistent life he leads, and in the counsel he imparts, we 
have our hopes in the permanency of popular government bright- 
ened, and our steps directed as we rise to national strength and 
grandeur. 



6 PREFACE. 

In making a register of his life, the authors have had access 
to oriorinal sources of information, and have availed themselves 
of every aid within their reach for the verification of their state- 
ments as to matters of fact. They have endeavored to present 
opinions frankly and fairly, and to render this biography as com- 
plete as the allotted time and space would permit. 

If this book, in spite of any errors, tends to do justice to the 
character and course of one of the representative men of the 
present times, to give dignity to labor, to inspire working-men 
with confidence in themselves, and stronger love for our country, 
the end for which it is written will be attained. 



COl^TEIJTTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Colbaths. — Farraington People in 1812. — Mr. Winthrop Colbath and 
•\yife. _ Introduction of Son to Mrs. Guy's Scliool. — Sciiool-Books of thoae 
Days. — Change of Residence. — Visit to Mrs. Eastman.- Testament.- 
Hard Times in the Family. —Young Colbath goes to live with Mr. William 
Knights.- His Labors on the Farm. —Kindness of Mrs. Eastman. — Young 
Colbath's Love of Books.- His Reading. — Faithfulness to his Employer. 
— His Frugality. — Freedom. — Compensation . — Change of Name. — Char- 
acter. — Search for Labor. — Resolves to go to Natlck and become a Shoe- 
maker 

CHAPTER II. 

Journey to Natick. — Visits Bunker Hill and the Office of " The North-Ameri- 
can Review." — The Town of Natick. — Shoeraaking. — Lets himself to 
learn the Trade. — Makes Forty-seven Pairs and a Half of Shoes without 
gloep. — Forms a Debating Club. — Improves in Speaking. — Deacon Cool- 
jdge. — Health impaired. — Visits Washington in 1836. — Opposition to 
Shivery. — Williams's Slave-Pen. — His Own Account of his Visit. — At- 
tends Academies in New Hampshire. — School-Teaching. — Studies. — 
Attends an Antislavery Convention at Concord, N.H. — Loss of Funds.— 
Returns to Natick. — Improvements in the Village. — He begins to manufac- 
ture Shoes. — Character as a Business-Man. — Amount of Business done.— 
His Regard to Principle 

CHAPTER m. 

The Rev. E.D.Moore: his Views, and Regard for Mr. Wilson. — The Rev. 
Samuel Hunt: his Influence. — Bible-Class. — Presentation of a Watch.— 
Marriage. — Mrs. Wilson's Character. — Her Influence over her Husband.— 
Their House and Home. — Birth of a Son. — Mr. Wilson's Regard for Tem- 
perance.— Speech.— Candidate for General Court. — Defeated on the Fif- 
teen-gallon Law. —Enters the Harrison Campaign. — General Enthusiasm 
of Xhe People. — He makes his first Political Speech. — Addresses more 
than Sixty Audiences. — His Manner. — Elected to General Court. — Story 
of the Farmer. — His Industry. - His Views of Slavery.— Advocates Re- 
peal of Law against Intermarriage of Blacks and Whites. — Defeated as 



8 CONTENTS. 

Candidate for Senate. — Elected to that Body the Next Tear, and for 1845. 

— Contends for the Right of Colored Cliildren to a Seat in the Public 
Schools.- Remarks thereon. — Advance in Public Sentiment. — Mr. Wil- 
80d'8 Mission 38 

CHAPTER IV. 

His Military Turn of Mind. — Reading. — Views of War. — Views of the Mili- 
tia System. — Election as Major, 1843. — Colonel and Brigadier-General, 
1846. — Regard for Discipline. — Popularity with Soldiers. — Speech in the 
Senate. — Peace and War. — Preparations for more Important Duties. — His 
Regard for Temperance. — Speech at Natick, 1845. — A Citizen at Home. — 
Appreciated by bis Townsmen 61 

CHJVPTER V. 

Southern Efforts to annex Texas to the United States. — Mr. Wilson's Amend- 
ment to Resolutions against Annexation in the Senate adopted. — Call for a 
Convention. — Opposed by Whigs. — Held in Faneuil Hall, Jan. 27. — Ad- 
dress to the People. — The True Reformer. — Meeting at Waltham. — Mr. 
Wilson's Views. — Convention at Concord, 1845. — Mr. Hunt. — Meeting at 
Cambridge, Oct. 21. — Address of Mr. Wilson. -Persistent Eftbrts. — Cur- 
ries Petitions to W^ashinglon. — Refuses to take Wine with Mr. Adams. 

— State Representative in 1846. — Introduces Resolution on Slavery. — Elo- 
quent Speech thereou. — Mr. Garrison's View of it. — Regard for the Con- 
stitution 60 

CHAPTER VI. 

Regard of the People. — Delegate to the National Convention. — Withdraws 
from that Body. — Origin of the Free-soil Party. — "Boston Republican." 

— Editor of — Its Principles and Influence. — Chairman of Free-soil State 
Committee. — Member of the House, 18.50. — Mr. Webster's 7th-of-Marcb 
Speech. — The Coalition. — Election of Mr. Sumner to the United-States 
Senate, 1851. — Mr. Sumner's Letter. — Mr. Wilson made Chairman of the 
Senate that Year. — Address on taking the Chair. — A Contrast. — ''The 
Liberator." — Harvard University. — Thanks of the Senate, and Closing 
Address. — Delegate to Pittsburg. — Candidate for Congress, 1852. — Chair- 
man of the Senate, 1852. — His Course in the Senate. — Welcome to Kos- 
suth. — Sympathy between them. — His Punctuality. — Gold Watch . . 88 

CHAPTER Vn. 

A Friend of his Pastor. — Hard Study.— Temperance. — Books and Authors. 

— The Source of Civil Liberty. — No " Back-BIows." — Cheerful Spirit.— 
Home. — Gift to his Minister. — Revision of the State Constitution. — Elected 
by Natick and Berlin. — Punctuality. — His Course. — How he looked at a 
Legal Question. — Chairman pro <em. — Speech in Favor of Colored Troops. 

— On the Death of Mr. Gourgas of Concord. — On the Course of Harvard 
College in Respect to I'rof Bo wen. — Address to his Constituents. — Reason 

for Defeat of the A mendments. — Cost and Influence of the Convention . 103 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER Vin. 

Candidate for Governor. — Defeated. — Not disheartened. — Visit to Washing- 
ton. — His Grand Idea. — Ready to surrender Party for Principle. — Con- 
vention at Worcester, 1854. — Again nominated for Governor, and defeated. 
— State goes into the American Organization. — His Views. — Southern 
Domination. — Antislavery Sentiment increasing. — Sumner. — Mr. Wilson 
nominated United-States Senator. — His Firmness. — His Election. — United- 
States Senate-Chamber. — His Fitness for the Place. — His Personal Appear- 
ance. — His First Speech. — Letter from Mr. Ashmun. — Extract from Mr. 
Parker's Sermon, and Letter from the Same 



CHAPTER EX. 

Defection of the American Party. — Southern Influence. — Wilson's Resolution. 
Interesting Letter. — Address in New York. — Antislavery Cause in Peril. — 
Brattleborough, Vt. — Delegate to American National Council, June, 1855. 

— Stand for Freedom. — Protest. — Defiant Speech. — Letter from Amasa 
Walker. — Remarks of " The Tribune." — Activity in forming a New Party. 

— Speech at Springfield. — Twenty-one- Years Amendment. — Opposes 
it. — Friendly to Foreigners. — Letter to Francis Gillette. — Catholic 
Spirit 

CHAPTER X. 

Troubles in Kansas. — Slave and Free Labor Antagonistic. — Reply to Mr. 
Toucey. — Mr. Douglas. — Assault on Mr. Sumner. — Aided by Mr. Wilson. 

— Scene in the Senate-Chamber. — Challenge of P. 8. Brooks. — Reply. — 
How received. — Letter of Mr. Harte. — Reply to Mr. Butler of South Caro- 
lina. — Letter from Whittier. — Labors in the Senate. — Views on Sla- 
very. — Speech July 9. — Musket-Ball. — Speech against sending Military 
Supplies to subjugate Freemen in Kansas . 



CHAPTER XI. 

Philadelphia Convention, 1856. — Platform. — The Campaign. — Sons of New 
Hampshire. — South for the Dissolution of the Union. — Kansas and Nebras- 
ka Bill. — Speech on the Republican Party. — Opening of the Grand-Trunk 
Railroad. — Speech at Montreal. — Activity in the United-States Senate.— 
Measures proposed. — Speech on the Lecompton Constitution. — Letter from 
the Hon. George T. Bigelow ; also from the Hon. G. R. Russell . 



CHAPTER XII. 

Character of his Reply to Mr. Hammond. — ''Cotton is King." — Southern 
Institutions. — A Contrast. — Social Condition of the North and South. — 
Mud-sills.- Free Labor of the North. —Conclusion of his Argument.— 
Reply to Mr. G win's Challenge. — The Affair amicably adjusted . 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Re-elected by a Large Majority. — Reasons for it. — His Industry. — Patronage. 
— Advocates Central Route for the Pacific Railroad. — Extract from his 
Speech. — A Radical Southern Party. — A Personal Interview. — His 
Course. — Temperance Meeting. — Printers' Banquet. — Paul Morphy. — 
Fourth of July at Lawrence. — Uis Address. — His Course in respect to the 
Raid of John Brown. — Meeting at Natick. — Reply to Mr. Iverson. — Vote 
of Thanks by the General Court. — Speech on the Slave-Trade . 



CHAPTER XrV. 

Mr. Lincoln nominated. — Mr. Wilson's Energy in his Support. — Speech at 
Myrick's.- East Boston.- Free and Slave Labor. — Letter of Mr. Packard. 
— Secession of the Southern States.- Mr. Wilson Fearless. — Speech in 
the Senate. — Labors in the Military Committee with Mr. Davis. — He fore- 
sees a tremendous Contest.— His Position.— Great Speech on Mr. Critten- 
den's Compromise. —Letters from Mr. Whittier, Mrs. L. M. Child, Gerrit 
Smith, Amasa Walker. — Vote of Thanks 273 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Beginning of Hostilities. — His Advice to the President. — Activity.— 
Labors as Chairman of Military Committee. — Bills introduced by him.— 
Letter from Gen. Scott. — The Soldier's Friend. — Battle of Bull Run, July 
21. — He raises nearly Twenty-three Hundred Men. — Made Colonel of the 
Twenty-second Regiment. — Goes with it to Washington. — Character of 
this Regiment. — Aide-de-camp to Gen. McCiellan. — Letter of Gen. Wil- 
liams. — Receives no Compensation for Service. — Unfounded Charge of Mr. 
Russell. — Mr. Wilson's Letter. — His Record. — Rebellion strengthens.— 
Character of the Republican Leaders. — Measures introduced and carried 
through Congress by Mr. Wilson. — Letter of Mr. Cameron. — Emancipa- 
tion in the District of Columbia. —An Early Aspiration realized. — Letters 
from Lewis Tappan and John Jay 304 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Conflicting Powers. — The Array and Congress. — Position of Mr. Wilson. 

— Bill for Sutlers.- Signal Service. — Pay to Officers.- Medical Depart- 
ment. — Volunteers. — Seniority of Commanders. — Storekeepers. — District 
of Columbia. — Medals. — Pay in Advance. — Abolition in District of Co- 
lumbia.— The Confederates. — Militia Bill. — President's Proclamation.— 
Rosecrans. — Bureau of Emancipation. — Enrolment Bill. — Remarks. — 
Colored Youth. — Wounded Soldiers. — Corps of Engineers. — Letter of Dr. 
Silas Reed. — Fall of Vicksburg.- Conference with the Cabinet. — Battle 
of Gettysburg. — Gen. Grant. — Address before the Antislavcry Society.- 
Thanks to the Army. — Bounties. — Ambulances. — Colored Soldiers Free. 

— Thirteenth Amendment. — Speech. — Appropriation Bill. — Wives and 
Children of Colored Soldiers Free. — Fourth of July at Washington. — Gen. 
Grant. — "New-Bedford Mercury." — A Letter 



CONTENTS. 11 



CHAPTER XVn. 

Mr. Wilson returned to the United-States Senate. — Notice of Election by " The 
Boston Journal.'' — Freedmen's Bureau. — Military Appointments. — Visit 
to Fort Sumter. — Deatii of Mr. Lincoln. — Mr. Wilson's View of him. — 
Speech at Washington July 4. — Mayor Wallach. — Advice to the Colored 
People. — The Course of the Executive. — Silver Wedding. — Description 
of. —Articles presented. — Respect of his Townsmen. — Record of Anti- 
slavery Measures in Congress. — Characterof the Work. — Opinion of " The 
Atlantic Monthly." — Summary of the Work. — Slaves used for Military 
Purposes m.^de Free. — Fugitives. — District of Columbia. — '• Black Code." 

— Witnesses. — Schools. — Railroads. — Territories Free. — Emancipation. 

— Captives of War. — Rebel Claimants of Slaves. — Hayti and Liberia. — 
Slaves in Military Service. — Fugitive-slave Acts. — Slave-Trade. — Courts, 
Testimony in. — Reconstruction. — United-States Mail. — Wives and Chil- 
dren of Slaves. — Bureau of Freedmen. — Amendment of the Constitution. 

— The Negro a Citizen. — Colored People indebted to the Labors of Mr. 
Wilson 

CHAPTER XVin. 

Course of the President. — Reconstruction Difficult. — Mr. Wilson's View. — 
No Desire to degrade the South. — Bill to maintain the Rights of the Freed- 
men. — Supports Mr. Trumbull's Bill to enlarge the Freedmen's Bureau. — 
What he means by Equality. — Honorable Sentiments. — Joint Resolution 
for disbanding Military Organizations. — Speech on the Resolution of Mr. 
Stevens against the Admission of Southern Representation. — The Nature 
of the Struggle. — Condition of Freedmen. — Mistake of the President. — 
Gen. Orant. — Legislative Labors. — Speech in Boston. — Natick. — Defec- 
tion of the President. — Massachusetts. — Congress a Co-ordinate Branch 
of the Government.— Tour through the West. — Speech at Chicago. —Elec- 
tive Franchise in the District of Columbia. — Corporal Punishment. — Buy- 
ing and selling Votes. — Address on Religion. — Testimony of Statesmen to 
Christianity. — An Admonition. — Death of his Son. — Monument. — Ad- 
dress at Quincy, — Good Advice, — His Work on Military Legislation in 
Congress. — Its Character , 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Peonage. — Whipping. — Colored Persona in the Militia. — Bill to facilitate 
Restoration — Speech thereon. — Peelings toward the Rebels. — Temperance 
in Congress. — Hon. Richard Yates. — Reception at Tremont Temple. — Re- 
marks of W. B. Spooner. — Mr. Wilson's Address. — Mr. Yates's. — Liquors 
banished from the Capitol. — Enforcement of the Law. — Visit to the South. 

— At Richmond, Va. — Petersburg. — Animosity of Goldsborough, N.C. — 
Reception at Wilmington. — Mr. Robinson. — At Charleston May 2. — 
New Orleans. — Gen. Longstreet's Opinion. — Declines going to Europe. — 
Bill vacating Offices. — Appointing Civilians incorporated in Mr. Trumbull's 
Bill. — Remarks on its Passage. — President of Convention at Worcester. — 
Speech. — Gen. Sheridan.- Hopeful View of the Republic. — Speech at 
Marlborough. — Eflfecta of Intemperance.- Who are Weak? — Strong Ap- 



12 CONTENTS. 

peal. — Speech at Bangor. — Gen. Grant.— Speech inFaneuil Hall. — Friend 
of Worklng-Men. — Reconstruction Measures. — Style and Subject-llalter. 

— A Wedding 

CHAPTER XX. 

Mrs. Wilson's Death and Character. — Mrs. Ames's Opinion. -Visit to Europe. 

— American Missionary Society. — Rise and Fall of the Slave-Power.- Ex- 
tract.— Nomination as Vice-President. — Letter of Acceptance. — Address 
atBoston.— Character as Orator, Statesman, Author, and Man . . . 







^^^^ 



LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. -;- MR. WILSOn's FAMILY, BIRTH, BOYHOOD, 
APPRENTICESHIP, AND EDUCATION. 



The Colbaths. — Farmin^on People in 1812. — Mr. Winthrop Colbath and 
Wife. — Introduction of Son to Mrs. Guy's School. — School-Books of those 
Days. — Change of Residence. — Visit to Mrs. Eastman. — Testament. — 
Hard Times in the Family. — Young Colbath goes to live with Mr. William 
Knights. — His Labors on the Farm. — Kuidness of Mrs. Eastman.— Young 
Colbath's Love of Books. — His Reading. — Faithfulness to his Employer. — 
His Frugality. — Freedom. — Compensation. — Change of Name. — Charac- 
ter. — Search for Labor. — Resolves to go to Natick and become a Shoemaker. 

ONE of the essential benefits of liberal institutions is 
the opportunity afforded by them for developing the 
mental energies of the masses of the population. Freedom 
is the fostering mother of the intellect and intelligence of 
the entire people. 

The voice of civil liberty, like that of Christianity, is, 
" Ho ! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; and 
he that hath no money; and whosoever will, let him 
come." Hence America is the best country in the world 
for men to make themselves. 

" Sometimes," remarked an intelligent Japanese, " we 
express our feelings in Japan : opinions we have none." 



14 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Here we entertain opinions ; we express them freely ; 
and, through the clashing of opinions, make advancement. 
Our destiny is placed in our own hands ; and every man is 
rated, as he ought to he, according to his worth. There is 
the goal, the prize : the track is clear, and the best cham- 
pion wins. 

Thus from the bosom of the people came up Washing- 
ton, Jackson, Clay, and Lincoln ; and thus arose the legis- 
lator whose career we now attempt to trace. 

Henry Wilson is the son of Winthrop and Abigail 
Colbath ; and was born in Farmington, N.H., on* the 
sixteenth day of February, 1812. His father was the 
son of Winthrop Colbath ; and was born in that town on 
the seventh day of April, 1787; and died in Natick, Mass., 
on the tenth day of February, 1860. His m'other was 
born on the twenty-first day of March, 1785 ; and died 
on the eighth day of August, 1866. They rest side by 
side in the cemetery at Natick, where the son has erected 
marble headstones to their memory. 

The Colbath family, originally, as supposed, from 
Argyleshire in Scotland, emigrated to the north of Ireland 
in the troublesome times of James the First ; thence to 
America, and settled at Newington, N.H., early in the 
eighteenth century. 

At the time of Mr. Wilson's birth, his parents were 
living in a small cottage on the right bank of the Cocheco 
River, about one mile south^of the "Dock," as the village 
of Farmington was then called. The site of the cottage 
is on a gentle eminence commanding a pleasant prospect 
of the river and surrounding country. 

Farmington, which is in Strafford County, and about 
thirty-five miles north-east from Concord, and seventeen 
north-west from Dover, contained, at this period, about 



DsTTRODUCTION. 15 

twelve liundred inhabitants ; and tliej were mostly engaged 
in agricultural pursuits. They earned their livelihood by 
the sweat of the brow. They had but slender educational 
advantages ; and their style of speech, of dress, of build- 
ing, and of life in general, was plain and unpretending. 
They generally spun and wove their own garments from 
wool of their own raising. They stored their barns with 
hay in summer, their cellars with apples and cider in the 
autumn. They spent the long winter evenings around the 
ample fireplace in shelling corn, making brooms, crack- 
ing nuts, singing songs, and telling stories of the times gone 

by. 

Mr. Winthrop Colbatli was a poor day-laborer, engaged 
for many years in running a saw-mill on the river below 
his house. He was rather tall, good-looking, agile, brave, 
and quick at repartee. His wife was handsome, fond of 
reading, sensible, and industrious. Her eyes were very 
keen and piercing. For his father and mother Mr. Wilson 
ever entertained and cherished the most affectionate and 
kind regard. 

Like other indigent and hard-working people of New 
England, Mr. Wilson's parents saw the value of the pub- 
lic school, and early introduced their bright-eyed son to 
the tuition of Mistress Guy, who quickly taught him how 
to read and spell, from Perry's " Spelling-Book " and 
" The Primer," in the old wooden schoolhouse. 

He was a studious and obedient pupil, improving well 
the opportunities he had for learning in his boyhood. 

The school-books at that time in Farmington were 
Welch's and Adams's " Arithmetics," " The English 
Reader," " The American Preceptor," and " The Colum- 
bian Orator." Over these this hoy spent many an hour 
in the long seats of the unpainted district schoolhouse ; 



16 LIFE OF HENRY WILSOK. 

and whatever entered his retentive memory remained as 
in a vice, — fixed and unchangeable. 

When he was about seven years old, his father built a 
small house in front of an old grove of pines, just where 
the Cocheco River makes a beautiful bend to the right, 
and to this place removed his little family. Nothing now 
remains to indicate the spot except the cellar, and some 
peach and cherry trees growing in the enclosure. 

When he was eight years old (1820), a little inci- 
dent took place which had some influence upon his 
future course of life. Mrs. Anstress (Woodbury) East- 
man, wife of the Hon. Nehemiah Eastman, and sister of 
the Hon. Levi Woodbury, seeing him pass her house, 
called him to her, gave him some clothes of which he was in 
need, and inquired if he knew how to read. " Yes, pretty 
well," he answered her. " Come, then, and see me at my 
house to-morrow," she replied with kindness. Early the 
next morning he presented himself before the lady ; when 
she said to him, " I had intended to give a Testament to 
some good boy that would be likely to make a proper use 
of it. You tell me you can read : now take this book, and 
let me hear you." He read a chapter in the Testament. 
" Now carry the book home with you," said she, " i*ead it 
entii'ely through, and you shall have it." 

Gladly he accepted the condition ; for a book he had 
never owned, and to him it was a golden treasure. He 
hurried home to read it, After seven days he called again 
at Mrs. Eastman's house, and said to her that he had read 
the book from beginning to end. 

" It cannot be ! " said Mrs. Eastman with surprise. 
" But lot me try you." So, calling him to her side, she 
carefully examined him till she was fully satisfied that he 
had read the Testament entirely through, and fairly won 
the prize he coveted. 



INTEODUCTION. 17 

Mr. Wilson has publicly declared that the reading of 
this Testament, which he still keeps, together with the 
subsequent examination, was the starting-point in his intel- 
lectual life. . 

The times, especially for the working-men, were very 
gloomy at this period. The war with England had im- 
poverisiied the country. Money was scarce ; wages were 
low. Want and sickness entered the Colbath family. 
Three of the little children died, and were buried in the field 
opposite the house. In reference to these days of trial, 
Mr. Wilson once, in public, said, " I was born in poverty : 
Want sat by my cradle. I know what it is to ask a 
mother for bread when she has none to give." 

So, in his reply to Mr. Hammond, who had characterized 
working-men as " the mud-sills of society," he thus 
touchingly alluded to these early days of trial : — 

" Poverty cast her dark and chilling shadow over the 
home of my childhood, and Want was there sometimes an 
unbidden guest. At the age of ten years, to aid him 
who gave me being in keeping the gaunt spectre from the 
hearth of the mother who bore me, I left the home of my 
boyhood, and went to earn my bread by ' daily labor.' " 

This active boy, nurtured in adversity, had a vigorous 
constitution : above all, he had an inspiration ; and a boy 
with an inspiration is far better than a boy with a great 
fortune. 

In the summer of 1822 he was bound by indenture to a 
hard-working farmer of the neighborhood to serve him 
on his farm until the age of twenty-one. By the terms 
of the indenture, he was to have one month's schooling in 
the winter, food and raiment, with six sheep and a yoke of 
oxen to be delivered to him at the expiration of his time 
of sei'vice. He went to live with Mr. Knight upon the 



18 LIFE' OF HENHY WILSON. 

seventh day of August, being then a little more than ten 
years old, and began at once the hard work of the farm. 
As he increased in age, his toil became more steady and 
severe. In summer he swung the scythe, or handled the 
sickle, till the evening stars appeared : in winter he cut 
timber in the forest. 

But while thus laboring uncomplainingly, and develop- 
ing by incessant toil his physical system, he was also 
turning every moment he could save from house and 
iarm work to the improvement of his mind. He read 
with intense avidity whatever books came in his way ; and 
he remembered what he read. 

" I believe," says Walter Scott, " one reason why such 
numerous instances of erudition occur among the lower 
ranks is, that, with the same powers of mind, the poor 
student is limited to a narrow circle for indulging his pas- 
sion for books, and must necessarily make himself master 
of the few he possesses ere he can acquire more." 

This poor boy had, at first, no books except his Testa- 
ment and the text-books of the district school. He read 
them over and over again, committed many parts of them 
to memory, and longed for more. Mrs. Eastman, as a 
kind of guardian angel, still watched over him. She 
noticed his regard for books : she kindly made selections 
for him from her husband's library, and lent him volume 
after volume. This was a godsend to him. Every mo- 
ment he could now steal from toil was spent in reading. 
This was his pastime and his recreation. Some of the 
happiest moments of his life were spent in running, when 
work was over, to the dwelling of his benefactress for 
another book. By the light of the kitchen-fire — for he 
had no money to purchase oil — he went through volume 
after volume ; sometimes reading on, unconscious of the 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

flight of time, until the morning broke. In this way he 
perused the leading works of the British and American 
statesmen and historians, the fascinating pages of Irving, 
Cooper, and Scott, all the then published numbers of " The 
North-American Review," and many other current publi- 
cations of the day. 

Judge Whitehouse of Farmington also lent him many 
books, and directed him in his course of reading. It was 
fortunate that he met with such intelligent guides, and 
that the best works in English and American literature 
thus fell into his hands ; for it is the quality rather than 
the quantity of the material received into the mind that 
yields valuable increase. 

So industriously had this hard-working boy availed him- 
self of these means of culture, that, at the expiration of 
his time of service (February, 1833), he had read, and then 
held in mind, nearly a thousand volumes of history, biog- 
raphy, philosophy, and general literature. Thus he bore 
away from that hard farm more solid information, and a 
heart better prepared to toil and to achieve, than many 
bear away with the diploma from the university. 

To the interests of his employer he was ever faithful. 
His eye was quick, his judgment clear ; his health was 
good; his habits were correct; and hence his services 
were valuable. 

On closing them he received the promised compensation, 
six sheep and a yoke of oxen, all of which he sold imme- 
diately for the sum of eighty-four dollars cash. So poor 
had he been up to this period, that he had never possessed 
two dollars ; and a single dollar would cover every i^enny 
he had ever spent. 

Having now arrived at the age of twenty-one, he, by an 
act of the legislature, had his name changed from Jeremiah 



20 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Jones Colbath to Henry Wilson. This was done by the 
advice of the family he had lived with, and with the ap- 
proval of his parents. 

The question now before Mr. Wilson was, " How shall 
I obtain a livelihood, and assist my father and his family ? " 
He set himself at once to seek employment ; and the 
struggles which it cost him to obtain it will forever keep 
alive his sympathies for the working-people. 

He hired himself for several months in Farmington ; but 
the compensation was so trivial, that he soon resolved to 
leave his native town, and find work elsewhere. He 
packed up his clothes and visited several places, seeking 
for it, but in vain. He himself shall tell the story. Ad- 
dressing the citizens of Great Falls last February, he 
said, — 

" I know what it is to travel weary miles, and ask my 
fellow-men to give me leave to toil. I remember, that, in 
1833, I walked into your village from my native town, 
and went through your mills, seeking employment. If 
anybody had offered me eight or nine dollars a month, 
I should have accepted it gladly. I went down to Sal- 
mon Falls, I went to Dover, I went to Newmarket, and 
tried to get work, without success ; and I returned home 
weary, but not discouraged, and put my pack on my back, 
walked to the town where I now live, and learned a 
mechanic's trade. I know the hard lot that toiling men 
have to endure in this world ; and every pulsation of my 
heart, every conviction of my judgment, puts me on the 
side of the toiling men of my country, — ay, of all coun- 
tries. I am glad the working-men in Europe are getting 
discontenteil and want better wages. I thank God that a 
man in the United States to-day can earn from three to 
four dollars in ten hours' work easier than he could, forty 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

years ago, earn one dollar, working from twelve to fifteen 
hours. The first month I worked after I was twenty-one 
years of age, I went into the woods, drove team, cut mill- 
logs, rose in the morning before daylight, and worked 
hard until after dark at night ; and I received for it the 
magnificent sum of six dollars ! — and, when I got the 
money, those dollars looked as large to me as the moon 
looks to-night." 

Unsuccessful in obtaining employment in New Hamj)- 
shire, Mr. Wilson finally determined to seek his fortune 
in the State of Massachusetts. He had heard of the 
prices paid for making shoes in the enterprising town of 
Natick : hence he resolved to go there, and to try a new 
vocation. He had learned to endure hardship without 
murmuring. His hand and eye were well trained ; his 
head was clear ; his heart was honest ; his store of knowl- 
edge large ; he had a sound mind in a sound body. His 
purpose was to work : what, then, could be expected of 
him but success ? 



CHAPTER ri. 

MR. WILSON LEAVES NEW HAMPSHIRE. HARD WORK AT 

NATICK. DEBATING SOCIETY. VISIT TO WASHING- 
TON. STRUGGLES FOR AN EDUCATION. MR. 

WILSON AS A MANUFACTURER. 

Journey to Natick. — Visits Bunker Hill and the Office of " The North -Ameri- 
can Review." — The Town of Natick. — Shoemakiiig — Lets himself to learn 
the Trade. — Mikes Forty-seven Pairs and a Half of Shoes without Sleep. — 
Forms a Debating Club. — Improves in Speaking. — Deacon Coolidge. — 
Health impaired. — Visits Washington in 1836. — Opposition to Slavery. — 
Williams's Slave-Pen. — His Own Account of his Visit. — Attends Acade- 
mies in New Hampshire. — School-Teaching. — Studie?. — Attends an 
Antislavery Convention at Concord, N.H. — Loss of Funds. — Returns to 
Natick. — Improvements in the Village. — He begins to manufacture Shoes. 
— Character as a Business-Man. — Amount of Business done. — His Re_.;ard 
to Principle. 

IN December, 1833, Mr. Wilson packed up his slender 
wardrobe, bade his friends farewell, and set out on 
foot for the town of Natick. He had but little money in 
his pocket ; and he resolved to make the journey with as 
little expense as possible. On the first day he travelled as 
far as Durham, where he obtained lodo;ing with a farmer; the 
next night he reached Salisbury, on the Merrimack River ; 
and in the morning following visited Newburyport, where, to 
ease his blistered feet, he purchased for twenty-five cents a 
pair of slip|)ers, in which he more comfortably pursued his 
way. Arriving at night at Saugus, he found entertainment iu 



MR. WILSON LEAVES NEW HASIPSHLEE. 23 

a private family ; and his waking dreams were of the famous 
city of Boston, whicii he was to see, for the first time, on 
the morrow. The two points of special interest to him 
were Bunker Hill, whose story had so often thrilled his 
imagination ; and the office of " The North- American 
Review," which had sent forth so many learned articles to 
instruct him, and to lighten the burden of his toil at 
Farmington. 

Rising early, and paying twenty-five cents for his lodg- 
ing, he recommenced his journey, and in a few hours stood 
upon the celebrated spot- where Warren fell. His quick 
eye swept over the whole scene ; his imagination pictured 
forth the first grand action on behalf of freedom in Amer- 
ica. It was to him an inspiration. 

On leaving this memorable spot, he inquu'ed the way to 
the office of " The North-American Review," which he 
found to be at 141 Washington Street, and something less 
than he anticipated. " Can so much good," thought he, 
"■come out of Nazareth ?" and so, having seen what he 
considered worthy of consideration in the city, he inquired 
the way to Natick. Some one misdirected him, and sent 
him, by a detour of several miles, through the town of 
Dedham. On arriving about midnight at his point of 
destination, he stopped at the old tavern on the turn- 
pike in the western part of the village, and found, on ex- 
amining his exchequer, that he had spent just a dollar 
and five cents in travelling the whole distance of about a 
liundred miles from Farmington to Natick. Such Spartan- 
• like endurance and economy were no mean elements in 
the training of the future statesman. 

Natick, which in the Nipmuck language signifies " a 
place of hills," is seventeen miles south-west of Boston, 
and, as the name would indicate, has its full share of 



24 LIFE OF nENRY WILSON. 

scenic beauty. From the suininits of Fiske and Pegan 
Hills the eye enjoys encliaiiting prospects, sweei)ing from 
Fiske Hill over the waters of Cochituate Lake and the 
handsome buildings of the village ; while from Pegan it 
follows the meanderings of Charles River through the 
valleys of Needham and of Dedham, and rests upon 
the distant spires of Boston and the monument on Bunker 
Hill. 

• In passing through the southern section- of the town, 
Washington once remarked, " Nature seems to have been 
lavish of her beauties here." It was at the point where 
the celebrated John Eliot had an Indian church, and taught, 
beneath the shade of an outspi'eading oak, the principles 
of the gospel to the aborigines. 

At the time of Mr. Wilson's arrival, the town contained 
about a thousand people, mostly farmers ; and at the cen- 
tral village there was a Congregational church, of which 
the Rev. Erasmus D. Moore, who became an earnest friend 
and counsellor of Mr. Wilson, was the pastor. TJiere was 
then no lawyer in the place, nor any need of one. There 
was but little culture, enterprise, or aspiration. Less than 
eight hundred dollars annually were appropriated to the 
support of public schools; and the buildings in which they 
were taught were rude and comfortless. 

But that branch of industry for which this town has 
since become so celebrated had already gained a foothold 
here. A few enterprising men had begun to manufacture 
siioes, yet on a very limited scale and capital, for the 
Southern market. Division of labor, machinery, and those 
various arts and appliances which render this business at 
the present day so lucrative, had found no entrance into 
the workshop. 

Then, instead of working on a single part, each work- 



HARD WORK AT NATICK. 25 

man made the entire shoe. It was called a " broo;an," 
and was sold by wholesale at the rate of about a dollar 
per pair. The process of making was slow ; the teaming 
to Boston was expensive ; and hence the business was not 
specially remunerative nor inviting. Mr. Wilson was, 
howevei', glad to find employment. Any thing was better 
than the exhausting drudgery of the fiirm he left, which 
afforded hiin very little leisure either for recreation of 
the body, or cultivation of the mind. He hired himself 
at once to Mr. William P. Legro, who agreed, for the 
consideration of five months' labor, to teach him the art 
of making shoes. With his knife and hammer he set 
to work with several laborers in a little shop in the 
western part of the town to learn his trade ; but, ere 
many days had passed, perceived that he had bargained 
away his time incautiously; and therefore he agreed 
with his employer, for the consideration of the sum of 
fifteen dollars, to release him from his obligation. At 
the end of seven weeks, he began working for himself. 
Anxious to obtain money for an education, he now applied 
himself to shoemaking with unflinching assiduity. The 
very first day afcer leaving Mr. Legro, he made eight 
pairs of shoes ; and very soon otitsped the fastest work- 
man in rapidity of execution, making sometimes two 
shoes to his one. He used to labor sixteen hours a 
day ; and " not unfrequently," says one of his compan- 
ions, " he worked all night and two days in succession 
without sleep." 

" He is a very good young man ; we like him much," 
said Mrs. William Perry, with whom he boarded : " but he 
keeps us all awake by his continual pounding through the 
night." 

Once he determined to make fifty pairs of shoes without 



26 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

taking any sleep. This usually required the labor of a 
week ; but his hand and eye, as we have said, are quick, 
and therefore he attempted this surprising feat. Forty- 
seven pairs and a half he actually made without reposing ; 
when he found, in spite of his resistance, sleep at length 
would overpower him in the interim between the raising 
and striking of the hammer on the shoe in hand ; and so, 
reluctantly, lie yielded to its influence. 

There is something touching in this scene, — the youth, 
smitten " by the wild delight of knowing," sunk in sleep 
over that last shoe. Was it not an earnest of that in- 
domitable energy he has since exhibited in the halls of 
Congress ? 

On the 19th of April, 1835, Mr. Wilson heard for the 
first time the eloquence of Edward Everett in his masterly 
oration on the battle of Lexington, and was inspired by 
it with fresh ardor to obtain an education : he also went 
on foot to Boston to hear Daniel Webster on the presenta- 
tion of the vase at the Odeon, and listened with admiration 
to the voice of that distinguished statesman. His aspira- 
tions were awakened ; but what hopes had he — an un- 
known, friendless shoemaker — any right to entertain? 
He returned to his hard toil, to think and to work on even 
to the very limit of his power. 

In the summer of 1835 the Boston and Worcester Rail- 
road was opened through the central village of Natick. 
The coming of the locomotive engine gradually broke up the 
old modes of thinking and of manufacturing. It brought 
in life, light, enterprise. New firms were soon estab- 
lished, new buildings erected, and new societies organized. 
Among these was one, which, although limited as to the 
number of its members, had, nevertheless, a lasting in- 
fluence over the intellectual character of the community. 



DEBATING SOCIETY. 27 

It bore the name of " The Natick Debating Society." It 
was formed in the winter of 1835, and originally had but 
thirteen members. Prominent among these were Henry 
Wilson, Alexander W. Thayer (now United-States con- 
sul at Trieste), George M. Herring, J. B. Mann, Dr. James 
Whitney, and Willard A. Wight. The design of the 
association was to discuss, either in speaking or in writino-, 
the current literary, scientific, or political questions of 
the day. The meetings were held in the old schoolhouse 
in the village, generally once, and sometimes twice, a week. 
They were continued until 1840, when the society was 
merged in the Natick Lyceum. 

To this little assembly of disputants Mr. Wilson resorted 
when the arduous toils of the day were ended ; and here 
he engaged most heartily in discussing the various questions 
of the times, especially that of slavery, which was then, 
through mobs, and acts of violence, to some extent, receiv- 
ing the attention of the public. Here, in this debating 
society, he learned to "think upon his feet;" to arrange his 
thoughts in logical order ; to detect and expose the sophis- 
try of an opponent; to settle questions by solid argument 
based on fact instead of theory. Here he acquired skill 
in parliamentary practice, and in a measure qualified him- 
self for a seat in the deliberative assemblies of the state 
and nation. This debating club was his political training- 
field : in it he went through the drill for coming conflict ; 
to it he owes, in some degree, that cleverness and that 
steadiness in debate for which he is distinguished. His as- 
sociates were not unfrequently surprised to see him exhibit 
such familiarity, with the history of his country ; and al- 
though he trembled when he spoke, and sometimes deviated 
from the principles of Lindley Murray's Grammar, they 
felt and said that he had power to command the attention 



28 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of his fellow-men on a broader field, and to render signal 
service to his state and nation. 

On one evening he had spoken but indifferently on a 
certain question, and incurred the ridicule of his oppo- 
nents. This aroused him; and, rising again, he broke 
into a strain of eloquence which electrified his hearers. 
They proposed that the question should be taken up again 
at the next meeting ; and he then discussed it in a style so 
masterly, that his opponents ever afterwards made their 
attacks with more consideration, and admitted that " the 
fire and the force " to do great things were slumbering in 
his soul. 

As to himself, so to the other members, this society 
proved to be of signal service. Almost every person who 
belonged to it has attained distinction in his chosen sphere 
of life, and now exercises healtliful influence over the 
destinies of his fellow-men. Some have been senators ; 
some have written useful books ; some adorn the liberal 
professions: all are intelligent, honorable, and progressive 
men. May not this debating club be cited as an example 
deserving the attention of the working -people of our 
country ? 

On coming to live at Natick, Mr. Wilson felt at once 
the need of books. There were no libraries in the place 
like those he left at Farmington, whereby he might gratify 
his appetite for reading ; and he had not the means to pur- 
chase what he wanted. 

There was, however, an old town-library of about two 
hundred volumes, then in the keeping of Deacon William 
Coolidge, a man of great simplicity of manner, heart, and 
doctrine. His wife was of the same spirit, pious, kind, 
obhging. Of the old Puritanic style of people they were 
models; rigorous in opinion, yet indulgent in respect to 



VISIT TO WASHINGTON. 29 

those who disagreed with them, and over ready to encour- 
age such as had an aspiration for improvement. In order, 
then, to gain access to the books in this old library, and to 
enjoy the society of these good people, Mr. Wilson pre- 
vailed on them to receive him as a boai'der in their family. 
Here he found generous sympathy, wise religious counsel, 
and a happy home. Witii them he attended church 
and social meetings ; by them he was treated as a son. 
Amongst his firmest friends at this period Mr. Wilson 
doubtless reckons Deacon William Coolidge and the Rev. 
E. D. Moore, who ever took the liveliest interest in 
his welfare ; who clearly saw, that, though he was the 
son of toil, he was the son of genius also ; and, by kind 
advice, encouraged him to bring out the manhood of his 
nature. 

By his incessant labor in the workshop, supplemented 
by his literary toil at night, Mr. Wilson's health became 
so much impaired, that it seemed to him imperative that he 
should take some relaxation. Tjie laws of health were 
not well understood by him, and he had continued working 
on unseasonably, until his strength gave out, his color fled, 
and hemorrhage of the lungs commenced. He had laid by 
several hundred dollars, with which he hoped to acquire such 
an education as would enable him to enter on the practice 
of the law. But, his health continuing to decline, his medi- 
cal adviser recommended, that, before commencing on his 
studies, he should make a journey to the South. He there- 
fore, in the month of May, 1836, set out for Washington. 
The changing scenes, the rest from toil, the thought that 
he was soon to look upon the Capitol and the lawmakers 
of the nation, was the very medicine which he needed. 

Passing through Maryland, he for the first time saw 
slaves of both sexes toiling half-naked in the fields, and 

8* 



30 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

expressed liis opinion to a gentleman in the cars that 
slavery was an evil. The gentleman replied to him with 
some severity, that " he could not be permitted to express 
such sentiments in the State of Maryland." 

The thought was startling, that, in a land of free- 
dom, his own tongue was fettered as was the bondman's 
body. 

On arriving at Washington, May 15, he entered the Capi- 
tol, listened to the stormy debates in Congress, and saw 
the petitions of the philanthropic men and women of the 
country against the traffic in human flesh and sinews laid 
upon the table. He saw Mr. Pinckney's infamous resolu- 
tion against the right of petition forced through the House 
of Representatives under the pressure of the previous ques- 
tion, and Mr. Calhoun's Incendiary Publication Bill pass 
one of its stages in the Senate by the casting vote of Mr. 
Van Buren, the vice-president. He saw the subserviency 
of Northern politicians to the domination of the South. 
He grasped at once the commanding question of America. 
Mr. Wilson remained at Washington until about the mid- 
dle of June, boarding on Capitol Hill, and sitting at table 
with Senator Morris of Ohio, who fearlessly opposed the 
advocates of human servitude. 

He visited Williams's notorious slave-pen on the corner 
of Seventh and B Streets ; he saw the poor people sold, 
manacled, separated, and marched away to toil and suf- 
fering beneath the whip of unfeeling taskmasters at the 
South. His sympathies for the bondmen, his indignation 
against the cruel system of human traffic carried on hard 
by the Capitol of a nation boastful of its freedom, were 
re -awakened, so that he then and there determined, 
that, come weal or woe, the powers wliich God had given 
him should thenceforth be devoted to the destruction of 



VISIT TO WASHmGTON. 31 

an institution so revolting to every instinct of humanity, 
so inconsistent with the declaration of our national inde- 
pendence, and so antagonistic to the whole teaching and 
spirit of the gospel. 

This is the key to Mr. Wilson's political career ; and by 
it his public acts must be interpreted. To this principle 
of human freedom, deeply embedded in his heart and run- 
ning through every fibre of his intellectual character, he 
has held, through all the political changes in the state and 
nation, with unflinching steadiness : so that, as one has 
truly said, " He floated into power upon the wave of 
principle ; while others timorously declined to take that 
wave, and now lie strewn as wrecks along the barren 
strands of compromise and expediency." 

Alluding to this memorable visit to Washington, the 
scenes tiien witnessed, and the resolution formed, Mr. 
Wilson, in an address at Philadelphia, 18G3, observes, — 

" I saw slavery beneath the shadow of the flag that 
waved over the Capitol. I saw the slave-pen, and men, 
women, and children herded for the markets of the far 
South ; and at the table at which sat Senator Morris of 
Oliio, then the only avowed champion of freedom in the 
Senate of the United States, I expressed my abhorrence of 
slavery and the slave-traflic in the capital of this democratic 
and Christian republic. I was promptly told that ' Senator 
Morris might be protected in speaking against slavery in the 
Senate ; but that I would not be protected in uttering such 
sentiments.' I left the capital of my country with the 
unalterable resolution to give all that I had, and all that I 
hoped to have, of power, to the cause of emancipation in 
America ; and I have tried to make that resolution a liv- 
ing faith from that day to this [applause] . My political 
associates from that hour to the present have always been 



32 LIFE OE HENllY WILSON. 

guided by my opposition to slavery in every form, and they 
always will be so guided. In twenty years of political life 
I may have committed errors of judgment ; but I have 
ever striven ' to write my name,' in the words of William 
Leggett, ' in ineffaceable letters on the abolition record.' 
Standing here to night in the presence of veteran anti- 
slavery men, I can say in all the sincerity of conviction, 
that I would rather have it written upon the humble stone 
that shall mark the spot where I shall repose when life's 
labors ai'e done, ' He did what he could to break the fetters 
of the slave,' than to have it recorded that he filled the 
highest stations of honor in the gift of his countrymen." 

On returning home from Washington, Mr. Wilson, hav- 
ing then about seven hundred dollars in cash, went to 
StraflPord in New Hampshire, and, on the first day of July, 
began upon a course of study in the academy at that place, 
then under the tuition of Mr. Dickey. He was induced 
to go to Strafford because it was near his early home, and 
also because one of his early friends, W. W. Roberts, a 
young man of remarkable ability, was then a student 
there. These two scholars were of congenial tastes and 
aspirations ; and the death of Mr. Roberts in his first year 
at Dartmouth College was an event of which Mr. Wilson 
speaks to this day with sorrow and regret. 

In delightful sympathy with this fine scholar, Mr. Wilson 
made the most of his time and privileges at this academy, 
pursuing such a course of study as would enable him to 
engage in teaching school in the coming winter. At the 
close of the scholastic term, he, at the public exhibition, 
spoke in the affirmative on the question, " Ought slavery to 
be abolished in the District of Columbia ? " 

It demanded courage in New England even then to ex- 
press such views on slavery as he was known to entertain. 



STRUGGLES FOR AN EDUCATION. 33 

To be called an abolitionist was a reproach which few could 
bear. The antislavery student met the question boldly, 
presenting cogent arguments for the immediate emancipa- 
tion of the bondmen at the seat of government. 

" That man," said some of the good people who then 
heard the speaker, " will make a minister." 

It is remarkable that he himself, after a struggle of a 
quarter of a century, should have introduced the measure 
into Congress which realized the aspirations he expressed 
in his first effort on the stage of the academy, in the first 
public speech he ever made. In February, 1872, it so 
liappened that Mr. Wilson addressed the citizens of Straf- 
ford assembled on the very same spot where he made his 
maiden speech in 1836 ; and some were present who re- 
membered it, and congratulated him on the fruition of his 
hopes. 

Anxious to avail himself of the instruction of Miss 
Eastman, daughter of his benefactress at Farm.ington, Mr. 
Wilson entered, in the autumn, the academy at WoHs- 
borough, on Winnipiseogee Lake ; and, pursuing his studies 
here one term with unabated zeal, he engaged and taught 
in the winter one of the district schools in that delight- 
ful town. The schoolhouse was situated on Mink Brook, 
and was about a mile and a half from the village. This 
term of teaching served to bi-ing his literary acquisitions 
into practice, and to fix the rudiments of learning indeli- 
bly in memory. His leisure moments were devoted to the 
prosecution of his studies. The Rev. Thomas P. Beach, 
afterwards imprisoned at New bury port for disturbing a 
religious meeting, was of signal service to him while a resi- 
dent of this town. In the spring following (1837), Mr. 
Wilson commenced study at the academy in Concord, then 
undercharge of the Rev, T. P. D. Stone, a gentleman of 



34 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

ability, who had given much attention to tlie art of elocu- 
tion. Here Mr. Wilson's principal recitations were in 
Euclid's " Geometry," Newman's " Rhetoric," " Mental 
Pliilosophy," Butler's " Analogy," and " The Geography 
of the Heavens." These and kindred branches he pur- 
sued with the same untiring assiduity he had manifested 
in the workshop when toiling for money for his education. 
Study with him meant business ; and, with his quick per- 
ceptions and retentive memory, he soon left his fellow- 
students far behind. His special forte was extemporane- 
ous speaking and debate ; and here he found in Mr. Stone 
an excellent instructor. When in debate, he seemed to 
hold the whole history of the country in his memory ; and 
woe to his opponent who had not power to wield the same 
effective weapon ! 

The principles advocated in " The Liberator " were now 
slowly gaining favor with the young men of New Hamp- 
shire, and a State antislavery convention was held by 
them this year at Concord. Mr. Wilson was chosen a 
delegate to this body ; and here he made an earnest and 
able speech on behalf of human freedom, characterizing 
slavery as an infraction of the laws of God and man, a 
national dishonor, and an impediment to the peace and 
progress of the people. 

While pursuing his studies at Concord in the summer 
term of 1837, a gentleman in Farmington, to whom he 
had loaned the money he had earned by such incessant 
toil at Natick for the expenses of an education, failed, and 
left him penniless. Tliis was a bitter disappointment. 
He must give up his cherished plans ; the workshop must 
again be his academy, and hard toil his teacher. 

At this crisis in his affairs he found a sincere friend in 
Mr. Samuel Avery of Wolfsborough, who kindly offered 



MR. WILSON AS A MAlifUFACTURER. 35 

to board him on credit just as long as he might wish to 
attend the academy in that town. Accepting his friend's 
proposal, he returned to the academy at Wolf'sborough, 
where he spent the autumn of 1837, closing in with study 
just as if his final opportunity for it had come. At the 
expiration of the term he started once more for the town of 
Natick, and, on his arrival, had less money than when first 
he came to it on foot four years before. His integrity and 
ability had, however, gained him many friends ; and he 
was at once appointed teacher of the centre district school 
for the ensuing winter. He taught successfully ; for he 
had tact to govern, information to impart, and glowing 
words to render it acceptable. To inspire is to instruct ; 
and this he could not fail to do. The meetings of the 
debating club he faithfully attended, and as faithfully 
employed the evenings not so spent in study. On fi^nish- 
ing his school, and paying off his debts, he had twelve 
dollars left ; and on this capital he began to manufacture 
shoes for the Southern market. In this business he con- 
tinued steadily employed, except when public duties drew 
him away, for ten consecutive years. At first he occu- 
pied Mr. David Whitney's shop ; but afterwards removed 
to one on Central Street, where his dwelling-house now 
stands. 

During the ten years which cover Mr. Wilson's business- 
life, the town of Natick made remarkable advancement in 
respect to population, wealth, and enterprise. Division 
of labor, and machinery to some extent, were introduced 
into the manufivctories, and goods of a better quality and 
finish were sent forth. In these improvements, as well as 
in the general prosperity of the village, Mr. Wilson took 
an active part. He attended the social gatherings of the 
people, identified himself with them in their joys and sor- 



86 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

rows, and lent a helping hand, as well as word, to every 
scheme for the promotion of the public o;ood. 

As a business-man he was upright, courteous, fair, and 
manly, ever taking sides and sympathizing with the work- 
ing-people. He paid his laborers promptly ; he encour- 
aged them with friendly words, and made them feel that 
they, as well as he himself, had rights to be respected. 
He had their confidence and esteem ; for every one of them 
knew that Mr. Wilson would share with him his very last 
dollar before seeing him come to real want. In one year 
(1847) Mr. Wilson manufactured a hundred and twen- 
ty-two thousand pairs of shoes, employing a hundred 
and nine workmen ; and the whole number of pairs of 
shoes made by him while engaged in business was six 
hundred and sixty-four thousand. In general, he sold 
these shoes to Southern dealers, who sometimes visited him 
at Natick to make their purchases. One of them once 
wrote to him, that, having failed in trade, he was unable to 
pay him more than fifty cents on a dollar. On looking 
over bis creditor's assets, and seeing that they included 
several slaves that would be put into the market, the 
honest manufacturer immediately sent him word that he 
could not consistently take any money coming from the 
sale of his fellow-men ; and thus, by his adherence to his 
principles, he lost seven or eight hundred dollars in this 
failure. 

Generous and obliging to a fault, Mr. Wilson never 
stooped to questionable means for making money ; nor was 
he, either by his taste or temperament, well adapted to the 
turns and tricks of trade. He had no wish, no faculty', to 
hoard up gold. He went into the shoe-business by neces- 
sity : his thought was running along another plane. His 
aspiration was to transact business on a broader scale"; to 



ME. WILSON AS A MANUFACTUKER. 37 

grapple with questions that bore upon the vital interests 
of the working-men throughout the country. Hence he 
closed the manufacture of shoes without much gain or 
much regret, and entered on that broader sphere of action, 
for which Nature, by her liberal gifts, had evidently in- 
tended hiui. 

4 



CHAPTER III. 



MR. WILSON S PASTORS. AN ADDRESS. HIS MARRIAGE. - 

HIS HOME. TEMPERANCE. HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 

HIS COURSE IN THE GENERAL COURT. 



The Rev. E. D. Moore : his Views, and Regard for Mr. Wilson. — The Rev. 
Samuel Hunt : his Influence. — Bible-Class. — Presentation of a Watch. — 
Marriage. — Mrs. Wilson's Character. — Her Influence over her Husband. — 
Their House and Home. — Birth of a Son. — Mr. Wilson's Regard for Tem- 
perance. — Speech. — Candidate for General Court. — Defeated on the Fif- 
teen-gal)on Law. — Enters the Harrison Campaign. — General Entlmsiasm of 
the People. — He makes his first Political Speech. — Addresses more than 
Sixty Audiences. — His Manner. — Elected to General Court. — Story of the 
Faftner. — His Industry. — His Views of Slavery. — Advocates Repeal of Law 
against Intermarriage of Blacks and Whites. — Defeated as Candidate for 
Senate. — Elected to that Body the Next Year, and for 1845. — Contends for 
the Right of Colored Children to a Seat in the Public Schools. — Remarks 
thereon. — Advance in Public Sentiment. — Mr. Wilson's Mission. 



BY the dismissal of Rev. E. D. Moore from his pasto- 
ral office at Natick, and by his consequent departure 
from that town, Mr. Wilson lost the daily counsel and en- 
couragement of a sincere and valuable friend, who sympa- 
thized with him in his political views, and had confidence 
in his ultimate success. The kindest social relations still 
subsist between these two gentlemen ; and it is doubtless 
gratifying in a iiigh degree to Mr. Wilson's earliest living 
pastor to see his expectations in regard to one of his society 
in Natick so fully realized. 



MB. WILSON S PASTORS. 6\) 

The Rev. Samuel Hunt, an able minister and a steady 
advocate of human freedom, succeeded Mr. Moore in July, 
1839, and continued as Mr. Wilson's pastor until 1850. 
He also felt a profound regard for the spiritual welfare of 
his distinguished parishioner, and aided him in his research- 
es. He rejoiced in the noble stand which his friend took 
against the aggressions of proslavery power, and labored 
with the clergy and the churches of his association to 
sustain him. He was well aware of Mr. Wilson's intel- 
lectual energy and growth, of his integrity, of his sincere 
devotion to the cause of freedom ; and he predicted his 
political success. He endeavored so to guide him as to 
make it sure. 

Under the faithful ministry of Mr. Hunt, the mind of 
Mr. Wilson became seriously impressed with the moment- 
ous relations between himself and his Maker, so that he not 
only listened with profound attention to the instructions 
of the sacred desk, but sometimes took an active part in 
religious meetings. He taught for several years a Bible- 
class in the sabbath school with great acceptance ; and the 
members of that class are now, for the most part, intelli- 
gent and progressive members of the church. 

On his part, Mr. Wilson encouraged and supported 
Mr. Hunt in the arduous labors of his ministry : he sym- 
pathized with him both in joy and sorrow ; and the tie 
that early bound their hearts together still remains un- 
broken. On the presentation of a watch to Mr. Hunt at 
his retirement from his pastorate at Natick, Mr. Wilson 
made the following beautiful and affectionate address : — 

" Respected Friend, — The relations which have ex- 
isted between us for eleven years having .now been dis- 
solved, we have assembled here to-night to express our high 
appreciation of your services as a pastor, our profound re- 



40 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

spect for your character as a man, and our personal regard 
tor you as a friend. We are here also to pass a few fleeting 
moments in your society ; to exchange with you a few 
parting words ; to take you once more by the hand ; and, 
with hearts overflowing with emotion, to bid you farewell. 

" Could these friends have controlled events, the chain 
that bound us together in the relation of pastor and people 
would have remained unbroken : you would have contin- 
ued with us and of us. Having passed your days with us 
in the performance of your duties, participating in our joys 
and sharing in our sorrows, when your ' race of existence 
was run,' we would have you repose in the bosom of our 
mother-earth with the people of your early choice, — in 
yonder spot, hallowed and consecrated as the last resting- 
place of this people and their children. 

" But it has been ordered otherwise. We must acqui- 
esce in an event we could not avert. You are to leave us 
to seek other fields of labor, to form new relations, to 
gather around you other friends. But, sir, wherever you 
may go, be assured that you will bear with you our warm- 
est wishes that Heaven will shower upon your pathway its 
choicest blessings. Wherever in the providence of God you 
may be summoned to labor, may friends — true-hearted, 
steadfast friends — cluster around you to cheer you onward 
in every beneficent effort to advance the cause of religion 
and humanity ! 

" You will leave behind you, sir, in retiring from the place 
you have so long filled, many evidences of your deep and 
abiding interest in our present prosperity and future welfare. 
The recollection of your many acts of kindness will be cher- 
ished by us with unabated affection until the hearts upon 
which these acts are engraved shall cease to beat forever, 

"Desirous that you should carry with you some parting 



MR. Wilson's pastors. 41 

token of our friendship, your friends have purchased the 
watch I liold in my hand, and' have commissioned me to 
present it to you. In their behalf I beg you to accept it. 
Take it, sir ; cherish it, not for its intrinsic worth (for it is 
of sHght value), but as a trifling tribute to your worth, and 
a memento of the respect, esteem, and affection of its 
donors. As a memorial of our friendship, I trust you will 
not consider it altogether valueless. It will not beat more 
accurately the passing moments than will the pulsations 
of our hearts ever beat responsive to the friendship we 
entertain for you. 

" We fondly indulge the hope, sir, that in after-life, 
amid its pressing cares and duties, it will sometimes remind 
you of the friends of those 

' Earlier days and calmer hours, 
When heart with heart delights to blend.' 

In the calm and quiet of your study, where the world and 
its cares are shut out, as the ear shall hear it beat the fleet- 
ing seconds, or the eye see it mark the passing hours, may 
it recall to mind reminiscences of the past ! — recollections 
of these scenes ; of this place, where were passed the fii'st 
years of your ministry ; where were spent so many years 
of your early manhood, — that portion of existence when 
impressions are most indelibly engraved upon the mind and 
heart ; where your children were born ; and where your 
home was blessed and made joyous by the grace, love, and 
piety of the wife of your bosom, — the pure and gentle 
being, the loved and lost one,who now sleeps far away amid 
the scenes of her youth, but whose memory will ever be 
fondly cherished by this peoj^le ; for 

' None knew her but to love her, 
Nor named her but to praise.' " 
4* 



42 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

On the twenty-eighth day of October, 18-40, Mr. Wilson 
was united in marriage, by -the Rev. Mr. Hunt, with Miss 
Harriet Malvina Howe of Natick. She was the daughter 
of Mr. Amasa and Mrs. Mary (Toombs) Howe, and was 
descended on her mother's side from Mr. Daniel Toombs, 
an early settler of the town of Hopkinton. She was a 
lady of good education, refined in sentiment, gentle in 
manner, and remarkable for the sweetness of her disposi- 
tion. By her unostentatious way of doing good, she made 
religion lovely. Her thoughts were noble ; and her influ- 
ence upon the society in which she moved was like the 
fragrance of flowers. She could not but make her home 
happy ; and her husband had a just appreciation of her 
excellence. To him, in his toils and trials, her clear voice 
was an inspiration. In her he beheld a pattei'n of true 
womanhood, and for her sake he longed to deserve well of 
his country. To her sweet influence over him may be in 
part attributed that delicate and profound respect which he 
entertains for woman, that sincere regard which he mani- 
fests for her intellectual and social elevation. His ideal of 
womanly virtue and devotion was realized in her pure and 
lovely life of trust and duty. 

Three or four years subsequent to his marriage, Mr. Wil- 
son built on Central Street, in Natick, the neat and commo- 
dious dwelling-house which he has since occupied. It is 
fui-nished with republican simplicity, yet with elegance 
and taste. To its hospitalities his friends and neighbors 
always find a cordial welcome ; and the absence of luxury 
and parade is more than compensated by smiles of cheer- 
fulness, and words of good will. On the eleventh day of 
November, 1846, the hearts of the parents were gladdened 
by the birth of a son, whom they named Henry Hamilton. 
He was their only child. 



TEMPEEANCE. 4d 

In principle and in practice, Mr. Wilson has always been 
opposed to the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage ; 
and to his strictly temperate habits may in part be ascribed 
that robust health and physical strength which he now so 
eminently possesses. As early as 1831 he joined a tem- 
perance society in Farmington ; and in public and in private 
he has ever exerted his influence to dissuade his fellow-men 
from the use of stimulating drink. 

In a speech in Tremont Temple, Boston, April, 1867, 
he said, — 

"I shall strive ever and always to promote and advance 
that great cause of our common humanity. It is no merit 
in me that has made me a life-long friend of temperance. 
God in his providence gave me no taste, no desire, for in- 
toxicating liquors ; and every day of my life, as I grow older 
and see the measureless evils of drunkenness, I thank my 
God that he gave me no desire for that which degrades 
and levels down our common humanity. 

" From my cradle to this hour I have seen, felt, realized 
the curse of intemperance. When my eyes first saw the 
light, when I came to recognize any thing, I saw and felt 
some of the evils of intemperance ; and all my life long 
to this hour, and now, my heart has been burdened with 
anxieties for those of my kith and kin that I loved dearly. 
With no desire for the intoxicating cup, with the evils of 
intemperance about and around me, and with a life bur- 
dened with anxieties for dear and loved ones, it is no 
wonder, ladies and gentlemen, that I have abhorred drunk- 
enness, while I have loved and pitied its victims." 

Aware of his regard for temperance, and having confi- 
dence in his ability as a thinker, his friends in Natick, ad- 
vocating what was known as the " Fifteen-gallon Law," 
presented his name in 1839 as a candidate for the General 



44 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Coui't. He failed by a very few votes of an election, and 
continued quietly manufacturinu; shoes, and studying the 
condition of his country. No representative was sent that 
year from Natick ; and the party in opposition to that law 
placed Marcus Morton in the executive chair of the State. 

In 1840 occurred the celebrated presidential campaign, 
in which William Henry Harrison, " the hero of the 
Thames and the Tippecanoe," was brought forward by 
the Whigs in opposition to Mr. Van Buren, then president. 
The experiments of the government upon the currencj'- 
•had embarrassed the financial operations of the country; 
had seriously affected the industrial interests of the North, 
and reduced the wages of the working-people. Hard times 
came on. The laboring-classes murmured against the 
measures of the government, and keenly criticised the 
course of the president and his cabinet. Mi'. Wilson, ever 
on the side of the working-men, felt the pressure, and saw 
the ruinous tendency of Mr. Van Buren's financial policy ; 
and, although he had hitherto sympathized with the Demo- 
cratic party, now came prominently forward with the 
Whigs, and espoused the cause of Mr. Harrison. " Hav- 
ing entered lite on the working-man's side," says the au- 
thor of" Men of our Times," "and having known by his 
experience the working-man's trials, temptations, and hard 
strugiiles, he felt the sacredness of a poor man's labor, and 
entered public hfe with a heart to take the part of the toil- 
ing and the oppressed." 

Up to that period, no political campaign in this country 
had so aroused the enthusiasm of the people. Mass-meet- 
ings were held in churches, halls, and groves ; log-cabins 
were erected, and sometimes mounted on wheels, and drawn 
from town to town ; banners with mottoes were unfolded, 
and immense processions of all ranks and classes bearing 



HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 45 

torcliliglits were formed. The ablest speakers took the 
stand ; and eloquence and patriotic songs set forth the vir- 
tues and exploits of " the hero of North Bend " before the 
people. 

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too" rang as a war-cry through 
the Union. Mr. Wilson shared in the enthusiasm. He 
studied well the course of legislation as presented in " The 
Washington Globe," and made his first campaign-speech 
in the Methodist meeting-house at Natick in opposition to 
Mr. Amasa Walker, who was an advocate of a specie cur- 
rency and of the general policy of the national adminis- 
tration. The ability of Mr. Wilson as a public speaker 
was at once acknowledged. He was invited to discuss 
the questions of the day in many other places ; and, dur- 
ing tiie campaign, made more than sixty speeches in the 
neighboring towns and cities. In Charlestown, Cambridge, 
Roxbury, Lowell, Lynn, Taunton, and other towns and 
cities, he addressed large and enthusiastic audiences with 
telling effect ; so that the general exclamation was, " How 
came this Natick shoemaker to know so much more than 
we do on national questions ? " 

The answer might have been, " This Natick shoemaker 
was studying ' The Federalist ' and the proceedings of 
Congress while you were asleep. 

In some instances, attempts were made to interrupt 
him in his speaking ; but holding himself steadily to the 
point in question, and to his good nature, of which the fund 
seemed inexhaustible, he manfully maintained his ground, 
and carried his audiences with him. He spoke extem- 
poraneously, but never without careful preparation. He 
read the best models of American eloquence, — such as 
Adams, Everett, Otis, Channing, Webster ; and, after com- 
mitting parts of his speeches to memory, he would some- 



46 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

times retire to Deacon Coolidge's old oak-grove, and there 
rehearse them to himself alone. He is remembered by 
those who heard him in this campaign as a young man of 
lithe and agile form, of an intellectual cast of countenance, 
clear complexion, earnest, searching voice, and sparkling 
eyes. He usually bent over the desk in speaking, as if to 
come as closely in contact with his audience as he could. 
His object seemed to be to reveal the thought of his hearer 
to himself; and herein lies one secret of a speaker's power. 
He also defended his positions by a very frequent appeal to 
facts ; and one who well remembers him at that time avers, 
" He had a very winning way in presenting them." 

At the close of the campaign, he had the pleasure of 
seeing Mr. Harrison, for whom he had spoken so many 
times, elected to the presidential chair by a large majority, 
— two hundred and thirty-four to Mr. Van Buren's sixty 
electoral votes, — while he himself was chosen a representa- 
tive from the town of Natick to the General Court of Mas- 
sachusetts. The legislative hall is now his academy ; the 
constitution is his text-book, and liberty his teacher. 

When he entered tiie House of Representatives, he ob- 
served that an honest farmer, twenty years his senior, had 
drawn one of the most eligible seats in the hall ; and he at 
once offered him three dollars for an exchange. The farmer 
gladly took the money ; for one seat to him who never 
spoke was just as good as another. But, some time after- 
wards, he referred to the circumstance as revealing the 
pride of the young member. " No," said one who better 
knew his spirit : " it reveals his foresight. He gave you 
thi'ee dollars for your seat in order that he miglit be in the 
best position to hear the arguments of other members, and 
also to present his own witii most effect. This style of 
doing things, if carried on, will give him influence here." 



HARRISON CAMPAIGN. 47 

It was carried on. He entered upon his legislative career 
with the determination of bestowing his whole time and 
attention upon the business coming before him. With sleep- 
less vigilance he watched every transaction, listened to 
every speaker, and followed every question. He was a 
working-man ; he entered the legislative hall to work ; he 
did not fail to work ; and workers win. 

It is noticeable that his first legislative speech was in 
favor of the working-man. It was delivered Jan. 25, 
1841, on a bill to exempt laborers' wages from attachment 
in certain cases. He said the honest poor of the State 
would deprecate the passage of such a law : it would pro- 
tect dishonesty. The class of men who lived upon the 
earnings of others were daily increasing. There were 
many men, too, who judged of morality by law alone. 
Such a law would impair the credit of the poor man. He 
hoped this bill would be considered on its merits alone, with 
no intermixture of party-spirit. He sympathized with the 
poor men with whom he had been reared, and with whom 
he now was. He moved to strike out the enacting clause. 

Inured as he had been to hard and unremitting labor, 
and with sympathies alive to human suffering, it was nat- 
ural that Mr. Wilson should be opposed to the whole sys- 
tem of domestic servitude. His mind revolted at the 
Avrongs the bondman bore in a boasted land of liberty : he 
keenly felt the cruelty of that code of laws that held him 
subject, and without redress, to the caprice of an insolent 
antl hard-hearted master. The instincts of a noble nature, 
the teachings of the gospel, the training he himself had 
undergone, the philanthropic spirit of the age, the opinions 
of the founders of the Constitution, all conspired to lead 
him to abominate the traffic in human blood, and the 
tyranny of subjecting innocent men and women to servile 



48 LIFE OF HENRY VvTLSON 

labor. The more he thought upon it, the more iniquitous 
appeared the system : it despoiled the slave of his just 
rights; it demoralized the master; it impoverished his 
country. At the same time, he saw that the slave-power, 
ever intolerant and exacting, had long held ascendency in 
Congress ; had by the craftiest plans extended its territory 
so as to maintain that ascendency ; and, while menacing , 
the North, had contaminated the source of political power, 
and brought the free States, to a great extent, into subser- 
viency to its schemes of aggression. 

Such, it is believed, were Mr. Wilson's views and senti- 
ments at this period ; and, if he did not enter the abolition 
ranks, it was not because he was opposed to their leading 
principles, but because he hoped to exert a stronger influ- 
ence towards the ultimate redemption of the slave by act- 
ing with the progressive men in the Whig party. In the 
legislature his voice was ever heard, his vote was ever cast, 
on behalf of the rights of those in bondage. In the House 
of Representatives, in 1841, he advocated the repeal of the 
law, which has been termed the last of the slave code in 
this State, forbidding the intermarriage of blacks and 
wdiites ; and, in the next session, made another strong 
speech in oi)position to the law, maintaining that it was 
founded on inequality and caste. He declared "that the 
bill was not inspired by political, but by humane motives ; 
and, though it might be defieated then, it would ultimately 
be enacted. It was only a question of time." This 
obnoxious law was repealed at the next session of the 
legislature. In November, 1842, Mr. Wilson was a can- 
didate for the State Senate ; but the Whig party was that 
year defeated in his county, as it was in the State. There 
being no election of governor by the people, the legisla- 
ture, in January, 1843, elected Marcus Morton for a second 



HIS COUESE IN THE GENERAL COURT. 49 

term. In 18-44 Mr. Wilson obtained a senatorial seat, and 
took an active part in the deliberations of that body, ever 
ranging himself upon the side of progress and reform. He 
made an elaborate report on military affairs, and carried it 
through the Senate. 

He was again a member of the same body in 1845, where 
lie again labored successfully for the improvement of the 
military system of the State, and also to improve the con- 
dition of the colored people. He strenuously advocated 
the right of negroes to seats in the railroad-car, from which 
they had in several cases been insolently ejected ; and also 
their right to admission to our public schools, from which 
prejudice had excluded them. 

A bill reported to the Senate, providing that any child 
unlawfully excluded from the public schools should be en- 
titled to recover damages, had been rejected. Moving 
the next day a reconsideration of this vote, Mr. Wilson 
made an able speech in behalf of the bill, in which he said 
that he considered it the most important one which had 
come up that session. " It concerned," said he, " the 
rights and feelings of a large but humble portion of our 
people, whose interests should be watched over and cared 
for by the legislature ; whose imperative duty it was, when 
complaints were made of the invasion of the rights of the 
poorest and the humblest, to provide a remedy that should 
be full and ample to secure and guard all his rights," He 
said the common -school system, the pride and glory of 
Massachusetts, was based upon the principle of perfect 
equality, and that the distinction set up at Nantucket aimed 
a blow at its very existence. The colored people said, 
and riglitly, that their feelings were trifled with, and their 
rights disregarded. Denouncing the spirit that excluded 
colored children from the full and equal benefits of com- 

6 



50 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

mon scliools, he said, " It is tiie same which has drenched 
the world with bh)od for six thousand years, made a slave- 
holder in South Carolina, and a slave-pirate on the coast of 
Africa." He said that those whose rights he wished to 
guard and secure had but little influence or power; while 
those who opposed them had both, and were only too will- 
ing to use them for their own aggrandizement. It was 
more popular to keep along with the current of prejudice, 
than, by resisting it, to be denounced as a " radical or abo- 
litionist." " In retiring from the legislature," he said, " I 
am sustained by the consciousness that I have never uttered 
a word or given a vote against the rights of any human 
being. I had far rather have the warm and generous 
thanks of one poor orphan-boy down on the Island of Nan- 
tucket, that I may never see, nor even know, than to have 
the approbation of every man in the Commonwealth, whe- 
ther in this chamber or out of it, who would deny to any 
child the full and equal benefits of our public schools." 

Such sentiments are creditable to the senator's heart. 
They had their effect on the Senate. Mr. Wilson's 
motion was adopted by a large majority : the bill was com- 
mitted to the judiciary committee, which reported a simi- 
lar bill that became the law of the State, Thus slowly, 
through the influence of the friends of freedom, Massa- 
chusetts came to see and to acknowledge the rights of a 
long-abused and shamefully-neglected race of people. 
Between the lofty and the lowly there was need of a medi- 
ator, who by his intellect could reach the one, and by hia 
hand of toil the other ; and such was Henry Wilson. 

" Then on I for this we live, — 
To smite the oppressor with the words of power ; 

To bid the tyrant give 
Back to hid brother Heaven's allotted hour." 



CHAPTER IV. 



MILITARY SERVICES. ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE, 1845. 

INFLUENCE AT HOME. 

His Military Turn of Mind. — Reading. — Views of War. — Views of the Militia 
System. — Election as Major, 1843. — Colonel and Brigadier-General, 1846. — 
Regard for Discipline. — Popularity with Soldiers. — Speech in the Senate. — 
Peace and War. — Preparations for more Important Duties. — His Regard 
for Temperance. — Speech at Natick, 1845. — A Citizen at Home. — Appre- 
ciated by his Townsmen. 

BY nature Mr. Wilson possesses the endowments requi- 
site to success, not only as a political, but also as a 
military leader. Rapid in liis combinations, quick to dis- 
cover the weak point in an oi)ponent, fertile in expedients, 
fearless and iar-seeino;, lie has elements both of mind 
and body for a commander. His thoughts were early 
turned towards military life ; and, during his minorit}^, 
he took deligJit in reading the history of the campaigns 
of JMarlborough, Wolfe, Washington, Wellington, Napo- 
leon, and other eminent generals. He drew in his 
mind the plans of celebrated battles, and criticised, as he 
could, the movements of distinguished leaders in the 
field. He first ap[)eared upon the training-field in Fartn- 
ington, where he was appointed to an inferior military 
office. On coming to Nalick, he continued to take a lively 
intei-est in militaiy affairs. He abominated war, viewed 
simply as a means of attaining personal glory ; but he felt 

61 



62 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

that it was sometimes indispensable to self-protection, and 
that the military system ot Massachusetts needed revision 
and support. 

This opinion he privately and publicly expressed as 
opportunity occurred. In the .State Senate, 1844, he 
was appointed chairman of the ]\Iilitary Committee, and 
made a strong speech on the 14th of February of that year 
in favor of increasing the pay of soldiers doing military 
duty. 

In 1843, without liis knowledge or consent, he was 
elected major of the first regiment of artillery, of which 
William Schouler was then colonel. He knew nothing of 
his election until he saw the announcement of it in the 
public papers. His duties as a major he faithfully dis- 
charged, and thereby won the confidence and respect of 
the soldiers under him. In June, 1846, he was elected as 
colonel of the same regiment ; and, six weeks later, briga- 
dier-general of the third brigade of the Massachusetts vol- 
unteer militia, in winch office he continued for the next 
five years. During this period he studied military tactics 
carefully, and by his skill and industry brought his brig;ule 
up to an admirable state of discipline. His soldiers loved 
liim and obeyed him, carrying out his orders with alac- 
rity, and priding themselves upon the bearing and ability 
of their commander. He had the reputation of drill- 
ing his brigade with greater thoroughness than any other 
officer in the State, and of being, at the same time, 
highly popular Avith his men. By his strenuous exer- 
tions in the legislature, much was done to revive the mili- 
tary spirit in Massachusetts, and to put her into position 
for a struggle which some prophetic eyes discovered even 
then to be impending. In a defence of tiie integrity of 
the soldiers at the polls, Mr. Wilson, referring to his own 



MILITARY SERVICES. 63 

connection witli tlie militia of the State, said in the Con- 
vention of 1853, — 

" I ma}^ speak from some little experience, having been 
a member of the volunteer militia of Massachusetts for 
nine years, and havino; during these years held the offices 
of major, lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general. 
I held the command of a brigade of more than eio-ht hun- 
dred men for five years ; and during these nine years I 
made many acquaintances and formed many friendships I 
shall ever fondly cherish. Not one unkind word ever 
passed between me and any officer or private of the 
brigade during my nine years of connection with it. I 
received from many of my comrades many acts of kind- 
ness I hope never to forget. During these years I was 
five times a candidate for senator of Middlesex, the 
county where the members of my brigade resided ; and I 
can truly say that I do not know or think that I ever 
received a single vote owing to my connection with the 
brigade. Four of the five gentlemen who were members 
of my staff were of a different political faith from mine ; 
and I have no reason to think they ever sacrificed their 
opinions on account of our personal relations as members 
of a military family. The members of the volunteer 
nnlitia of Massachusetts are generally men of intelligence 
and character, who are not won from their political alle- 
giance by the plume and epaulet." 

So in the same speech he thus eloquently expresses his 
views of peace and war : — 

" I am not one of those men who cry peace when there 
is no peace without slavery, injustice, and wrong. I may 
be m error ; but I have sometimes thought that the song 
which the peace-movement has hymned into the ear of 
Europe during the past five years has made far easier the 

6* 



54 . LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

marcli of the leoions of Russia and Austria upon Hungary 
and Italy, antl the march of the legions of Fiance — 
of apostate republican France — upon Rome. While the 
people have listened with softened hearts to the songs of 
peace, their masters have disarmed them, and sent forth 
their increasing standing armies to crush every manifesta- 
tion of freedom, progress, and popular rights. When 
tyranny is overthrown, and freedom established ; when 
standing armies are disbanded, and the people armed for 
their own protection against arbitrary power, — then I would 
write ' Peace ' on the banners of the people, and send them 
forth to make the tour of the world. My motto is, 
' Liberty first ; peace afterwards.' " 

By these faithful military services in his own State, 
Mr. Wilson was unconsciously making preparation for the 
intelligent performance of the important duties which de- 
volved on him as chairman of the Military Committee of 
tlie United-States Senate during, the Rebellion. For that 
post, not only comprehensive views, and industry that fears 
no task, but large experience and information gained by 
actual practice, were demanded ; and these Mr. Wilson 
had. 

In regard to temperance Mr. Wilson's record has ever 
been clear, decided, and consistent. With profound sorrow 
he early saw the havoc produced among his fellow-men by 
the use of stimulating drink; and with unwavering steadi- 
ness he has ever used his tongue, his pen, and his vote, to 
dissuade and to restrain them from the sale and from the 
use of any thing which intoxicates the brain. Next to 
slavery, he has considered intemperance as the tremen- 
dous evil of this nation ; and therefore, as a friend of 
liumanity and a lover of his country, he has ever striven 
most earnestly to arrest its progress. His views on this 



ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 55 

question in 1845 appear in an animated address delivered 
on behalf, of the Young Men's Temperance Society in 
Natick on the presentation by a lady of a beautiful banner 
to that body. It will be read with interest : — 

" Madam, — In receiving at your hands this beautiful 
banner from the ladies of the Martha Washington So- 
ciety, permit me, in return, in behalf of my associates, to 
tender to you, and the ladies whose organ you are, our 
sincere and grateful acknowledgments for this expression 
of your favor. For this evidence of zeal in our cause, 
and regard for our success, you have the thanks of many 
warm and generous hearts, that will ever throb with 
grateful recollection of your kindness till they shall cease 
to beat f trever. We receive, madam, with the deepest 
and liveliest sensibility, the kind sentiments you have 
expressed in behalf of our society. Be assured that these 
sentiments are appreciated and reciprocated by us. 

" You have this day, ladies, consecrated and devoted 
this banner to the great moral movement of the age. We 
accept its guardianship with mingled feelings of pride, 
hope, and joy. It is indeed a fit and noble tribute, an 
offtM-ing worthy of the cause and of you. May its fair 
folds never be stained or dishonored by any act of ours ! 
Tasteful and expressive in design and execution, we piize 
it highly for its intrinsic worth ; but we prize it still higher 
as a manifest and enduring memorial of your devotion to 
principle and duty. Ever proud shall we be to unroll its 
gorgeous folds to the sunshine and the breeze ; to gather 
round it, and rally under it, and guard and defend it, as we 
would defend from every danger its fair and genei-ous 
donors. It was not intended that the eye should feast 
alone on its splendor, but that, so often as the eye should 



56 LIFE OF HE>sEY WILSON. 

gaze upon it, a quick and lively ajipreciation of the tran- 
scendent magnitude of the cause to which you have 
devoted it should live in our understanding, and affect our 
hearts. 

" Ours is a peaceful reform, a moral warfare. We are 
not called upon to leave our homes and the loved ones 
that cluster around our domestic altars to go to the field 
of bloody strife on an errand of wrath and hatred. Our 
battles are bloodless ; our victories are tearless. 

" Yet the contest in which we are engaged is a fearful 
one ; for it is a struggle with the vitiated and depraved 
api)etites and passions of our fallen race, — foes that have 
triumphed over earth's brightest and fairest, over all that 
is n()ble in man and lovely in woman. These foes have 
gatiiered their victims from every clime and every age. 
No age, sex, or condition, has escaped. Heroes who have 
led their mailed legions over a hundred fields of glory and 
renown, and planted their victorious eagles on the capitals 
of conquered nations ; statesmen who have wielded the 
destinies of mighty empires, setting up and pulling down 
thrones and dynasties, and stamping the impress of their 
genius upon the institutions of their age ; orators who have 
held listening senates in mute and rapt admiration, and 
whose eloquence has thrown a halo of imperishable light 
and unfading glory over their age and nation ; scholars 
who have laid under contribution the vast domains of 
matter and mind, grasping and mastei'ing the mighty 
problems of moral, intellectual, and physical science, and 
left behind them monuments of toil and wisdom for the 
study and admiration of all ages, — have been the victims, 
the slaves, of these foes, — foes which we have ])ledged 
ourselves to conquer. In this fearful contest we will bear 
aloft this banner ; and when the conflict thickens, when 



ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE. 57 

trials, doubts, and temptations come around us like tlie 
jfloods, may it glitter through the gloom like a beacon- 
light over the dark and troubled waste of waters, a sign 
of hope and promise, to which may come, in the hour of 
loneliness, sorrow, and penitence, some erring and fallen 
brother! You can sustain us by your praj-ers, and cheer 
us by your approving smiles. You can visit, as you have 
done, the drunkard's home of poverty, destitution, and 
misery, and by offices of kindness and charity do some- 
thing to dry up the tears and alleviate the wants of its 
neglected and sorrowing inmates. 

" Every great struggle for humanity has been blessed 
by woman's prayers, and aided by her generous toil. The 
history of our country, of our own renowned common- 
wealth, is full of the noblest instances of her constancy 
and devotion. She trod with our fathers the deck of 
' The Mayflower.' She sat beside them in unrepining 
and uncomplaining constancy as they gathered in council, 
houseless and homeless in mid-winter, to lay in prayers 
and tears the foundations of a free Christian common- 
wealth. In the long, perilous struggles with the wild 
sons of the forest, she- shared without complaint their 
privations and dangers ; and, in the great struggle for 
independence, she counselled the wise, infused courage 
into the brave, armed fathers, husbands, sons, and bro- 
thers, and sent them to the field where freedom was to be 
won by blood. In the great struggle in which we are 
engaged to free our native land from the blighting, 
withering, soul-destroj'ing curse of intemperance, our fair 
country-women have shown that they inherit the virtues 
of our patriotic mothers. 

" Ladies, you have this day given us substantial evi- 
dence of your friendship, sympathy, and co-operation. 



58 , LIFE OF HENKY WILSON. 

May we not, then, indulo;e the liope tliat om* societies will 
move aloiio; in union and harmony, each in its appropriate 
sphere of duty, laborinor to hasten on the day when every 
drunkard shall be redeemed, and restored to his manhood 
and to societ}'- ? 

" Friends and associates, we shall doubtless, in the 
changes and mutations of life, be called to separate. 
Wherever we may go, on the land or on the sea, in 
our own or other climes, may a deep and abiding sense 
of duty go with us ! May the influences of this hour 
be ever upon us ! May this banner, the gift of those 
near and dear to us, ever float in our mind's eye, inciting 
us to duty, and guarding us in the hour of temptation ! 
And when life's labors are done, its trials over, and its 
honors won, may each of us have the proud consciousness 
that we have kept the pledge inviolate; that we have dcme 
something in our day and generation for our race, — some- 
thing that shall cause our names and memories to be 
mentioned with respect and gratitude when '■the golden 
howl shall he hroken and the silver cord loosed' when our 
'■hodies ' shall have mouldered and mingled with the dust, 
and ' our spirits have returned to God ivho gave them ' " ! 

Thus at home, among his own immediate friends and 
acquaintances, Mr. Wdson's words and example were 
from the outset unchangeably on the side of sobriety, civil 
order, social progress, and reform. If any thing beneficent 
was to be attempted, his friends knew where to find him. 
His hand and heart were ready. On the young people 
of the village his influence was ever salutary and inspir- 
ing. His friendly couJisel was ever given tor a higher, 
nobler course of life. In the social circle, in the shop, 
the lecture-room, or in the street, lie was always on the 



INFLUENCE AT HOME. 59 

right side. Very many of his companions can trace their 
success in life mainly to the elevatiiifj influence he exerted 
over them. The steady vote of Natick in his favor, and 
the public demonstrations of joy which that town has 
made on his advancement to political power, evince the 
estimation in which he is held as a townsman, friend, 
and neighbor at home. Those who know him best appre- 
ciate him most highly as a citizen and as a man. 



CHAPTER V. 

OPPOSITION TO THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. CARRIES 

PETITIONS TO WASHINGTON. SPEECH IN THE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1846. 

Soutliern Efforts to annex Texas to the United States. — Mr. Wilson's Amend- 
ment to Resolutions against Annexation in the Senate adopted. — Call for a 
Convention. — Opposed by Whigs. — Held in Faneuil Hall, Jan. 27. — Ad- 
dress to the People. — The True Reformer. — Meeting at Waltham. — Mr. 
Wilson's Views.— Convention at Concord, 1845. — Mr. Hunt. — Meeting at 
Cambridge, Oct. 21. — Address of Mr. Wilson. — Persistent Efforts. — Car- 
ries Petitions to Washington. — Refuses to take Wine with Mr. Adams. — 
State Representative in 1846. — Introduces Resolution on Slavery. — Elo- 
quent Speech thereon. — Mr. Garrison's View of it. — Regard for the Con- 
stitution. 

ON tlie death of Mr. Harrison, April 4, 1841, tlie slave- 
power found in Mr. Tyler, his successor, a will- 
ing advocate of its extension ; and then brought forward 
with unblushing front the gigantic scheme of annexing 
Texas to the Union. This, said Gen. Hamilton, would 
"give a Gibraltar to the South." "The Madisonian," 
the organ of the administration, declared that it would 
have the most salutary influence upon slavery, and 
that "it must be done soon, or not at all ; " and Mr. Up- 
shur asserted in January, 1844, that, " if Texas should not 
be attached to the United States, she cannot maintain that 
institution [slavery] ten years, and probably not half that 
time." Stormy debates occurred in Congress on the 



OPPOSITION TO THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 61 

question ; the Whigs, in general, opposing the annexation ; 
while " Texas, or disunion ! " became the watchword of 
the South. The question was carried into the presidential 
election of 1844 ; and James K. Polk thus came into the 
chief executive chair. 

In the State Senate Mr. Wilson took an active part 
against the Texan scheme. He moved an amendment to 
the resolutions against annexation, " requesting Massachu- 
setts senators in Congress to prevent, if possible, the con- 
summation of that slaveholding scheme." The resolution 
implied a rebuke for their timid action ; and he commented 
freely on what he characterized as their want of spirit. He 
wished to call their attention to the fact, that, upon the ques- 
tion of slavery, the legislature was in sober earnest ; that 
it wished " them to feel, to think, and to act as Massachu- 
setts men, who have been reared under the institutions of 
the Pilgrim Fathers, should think, feel, and act." His 
amendment was unanimously adopted by the Senate ; and, 
though amended in the House by the insertion of the words 
"representatives in Congress," it had the desired effect 
upon our senators in that body. Mr. Wilson spoke elo- 
quently and earnestly in the Senate-chamber against annex- 
ation, maintaining that, " if Texas should be admitted by a 
legislative act, that act could and ought to be repealed at 
the earliest possible moment." In order to develop and 
concentrate public sentiment on this question, he drew up 
a paper calling a convention of the State. Many eminent 
men of the Whig party in the General Court declined 
to sign the })aper. ' This was tlie entering wedge in the 
division of the Whig party of Massachusetts in respect 
to slavery, which resulted in open rvipture three years 
afterwards, and, finally, in complete extinction. Glory- 
ing in its past record, and intimidated by the effrontery of . 



62 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

the South, tliat party foiled to see the " lo^ic of events," 
and wore awa}^ until it received from its distinguished 
leader, Daniel Webster, in his speech on tlie seventh day 
of March, 1850, its final death-blow. The world was 
moving : not to move with it was to perish. 

The State convention was held in Faneuil Hall upon 
the 29th of January ; and its discussions were cliaracter- 
izeil by earnestness, vigor, and (h'termination. An ad- 
dress, in part drawn up by Mr. Webster, and dL-claring 
that " Massachusetts denounces the iniquitous ])roject 
[of annexation] in its inception, and in every stage of 
its progress, its means, and its ends, and all the purposes 
and ])retences ofits authors," was unanimously adopted, and 
widely circulated. " Thoughtful men," sa\s Mr. Wilson, 
"filled the hall ; speakers and hearers partook of a common 
sentiment : they realized as never before the imminence 
of the impending calamity, the gravity of the occasion, and 
the pregnant issues of the hour." 

" The true reformer," says some writer, " is the man 
upon whose mind the light ot great truths has fallen before 
it has reached the mass of his fellow-men, and who feels 
called of God to shed it abi'oad in the darkness." The 
declarations of Mr. Wils(m at this period show that he dis- 
tinctly saw the " impending crisis," the upheaving of the 
moral power of the nation, and the downfall of the deep- 
rooted institution of human servitude. 

Although a treaty of annexation had been signed by 
the president, aiul Texas had accepted the conditions, she 
was not yet a State of the Union. Efforts were therefore 
strenuously made by antislavery men against her admis- 
sion as a State. On the anniversary (Aug. 1, 1845) of 
the West-India emancii)ation, a large meeting was held at 
Waltham, Mass., where eloquent speeches were made by 



OPPOSITION TO THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 63 

William Henry Clianning, R;i1pli Waldo Emerson, Jo'in 
Weis-^, and Henry Wdson, in which the usurpations and 
iniquities of the slaveliolding power were forcibly set forth. 

"• The calamity and disgrace of annexation," said Mr. 
Wilson, "had come upon the country through the treachery 
of Northern men : even the representative of Concord and 
Lexington had proved recreant." To the question, " What 
should h~} done ? " he said, " Act. Hold meetings iiw'very 
distiict, town, and county in the State. Opposej^le admis- 
sion of Texas into the Union as a slaveholders tate, and 
appeal to the peo|)le of the free States to^arrest the con- 
summation of the great iniquity. Say ^lo the men of the 
South, ' Vou are warring against civilization, against human- 
ity, against the noblest feelings of the heart, the holiest 
impulses of the human soul, and the providence ot Go I ; 
and the conflict must ultimately end in your defeat.' " 

jVIr. Wilson soon after obtained the signatures of a large 
number of influential men for a convention to be held at 
Concord on the twenty-second day of Se])tember, 1845, 
which, as set forth in the call, was to " take into consider- 
ation the encroachments of the slave-power, and recom- 
nienil such action as justice and patriotism shall dictate to 
resist those encroachments, and arrest the progress of events 
so rapidly tending to that fearful consummation when slavery 
shall have complete control over the policy of the government 
and the destinies of the country. " Men of all parties, sects, 
and i)ur.suits, were invoked to " devote one day to the coun- 
try and the oppressed." " Let old age," he said, " with its 
garnered treasures of wisdom and experience, be thei'e, 
let maidiood in its maturity and vigor be there, let youth 
with its high hopes and aspirations be there, to devise 
such measures and awaken such a S|)irit as shall free the 
country from the dominion, curse, and shame of slavery." 



64 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Mr. Wilson had tlie pleasure of seeing a large, entlmsl- 
astic convention, and oi reporting a preamble and resolu- 
tions ; the former of which had been prepaied by his pas- 
tor, the Rev. Samuel Hunt, who, he observes, " had always, 
in the pulpit, in religious and political organizations, and 
at the ballot-box, acted for the slave, and against the domi- 
nation of his master." 

" We solemnly announce our purpose to the South," 
said the resolutions ; " and to the execution of that purpose 
we pledge ourselves to the country and before Heaven, 
that, rejecting all compromise, without restraint or hesita- 
tion, in our private relations and in our political organiza- 
tions, by our voices and our votes, in Congress or out, we 
will use all practicable means for the extinction of slavery 
on the American continent." Letters were received from 
Charles Francis Adams, and John G. Whittier the poet; 
and eloquent speeches were made by William Lloyd Gar- 
rison, Stephen C. Phillips, and other antislavery men. The 
resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

At an adjourned meeting of the convention, held in 
Cambridge on the 21st of October, Mr. Wilson presided, 
and, on taking the chair, made an earnest appeal for prompt 
and fearless action ; in which he said, " Let us at once 
take an advanced step against the slave-power. Let us act, 
and, as far as we have the constitutional right, go in favor 
of emancipation. Let us make it the cardmal doctrine of 
our creed, the sun of our system. Let us inscribe, in let- 
ters of light, emancipation on the banners under which we 
rally. Let us go to the country on that issue. We shall 
reach the heart and conscience of the people. They will 
come to the rescue, and we shall lay the foundations of an 
enduring triumph." 

A committee appointed at this convention prepared an 



CARRIES PETITIONS TO WASHINGTON. 65 

address to tlie people, and received in response peti- 
tions, signed by sixty-five thousand names, against the 
admission of Texas as a State into the Union. Mr. Wd- 
son and John G. Whittier were chosen to present this 
remonstrance of the people of this State to Congress. 
On the tentli day of December, Mr. Adams laid these 
petitions before the House of Representatives, and moved 
that they be referred to a select committee ; but the House 
by a large majority laid them on the table, and Texas 
soon became a State of the Union. But, though the 
Southern power was thus augmented, tliere were forces 
rising and combining which portended " irrepressible con- 
flict." 

While at "Washington, Mr. Wilson was invited to dine 
with John Q. Adams ; and, when wine was urged upon 
him at table, held himself, as did Daniel at .'the court of 
Babylon, to his principles of temperance, and declined to 
taste it. Surrounded by fashion, and moved by the exam 
pie of the great and gifted, as he was, he has since spoken 
of this as one of the strongest temptations, in respect to 
total abstinence, of his life. Mr. Adams afterwards heartily 
commended him for his consistency. 

In 1846, Mr. Wilson, who had declined being a candi- 
date for the State Senate, held a seat in the House of Rep- 
resentatives, and, as usual, took a leading part in the de- 
liberations of the session ; ever casting the weight of his 
influence upon the side of humanity and progress. He 
introduced a resolution on the third day of February, declar- 
ing " the unalterable hostility of Massachusetts to the fur- 
ther extension and longer existence of slavery in America, 
and her fixed determination to use all constitutional and 
legal means for its extinction." This resolution he sup- 
ported in a speech of signal power, evincing protbund 



66 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

research and a complete mastery of liis subject. He met 
with stern opposition from some leading men of the 
Whig l)arty, with which he was still acting ; though none 
could answer his strong and lucid argument. Of this 
sj)eech " The Liberator " said, " This is unquestionably 
the best antislavery speech that has ever been delivered in 
any legislative assembly in this country, — more direct, 
more comprehensive, more important ; " and " The Boston 
Courier " truly averred that " the spirit of inde]ientlence 
is manifest in every jiaragraph." Inasmuch as Mr. Wil- 
son, in this appeal for freedom, fearlessly discloses his 
opinions as a legislative champion of antislavery, clearly 
states the issues between the parties, ably answers the 
objections to his own position, marks out his future course, 
and prophetically announces coming events, we introduce 
it, with few omissions, to the reader : — 

SPEECH ON SLAVERY IN THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE 
OF REPRESENTATIV^ES, 1846. 

" I am not, sir, a political abolitionist ; or, rather, I am 
not a Liberty-party man. I have no connection whatever 
with that party as a party. I am an abolitionist, and have 
been a member of an abolition society for neaily ten years. 
I am proud of the name of ' abolitionist : ' I glory in it. I am 
willing to bear my full share of the odium that may now 
or hereafter be heaped upon it. I had far rather be one 
of the humblest in that little band which rallies around the 
glorious standard of emancipation than to have been the 
favorite marshal of Napoleon, and have led the Old Guard 
over a hundred fields of glory and renown. I have, here 
and in the other branch, always advocated and supported 
all measures that tend to the freedom and elevation of the 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 67 

colored portion of our countrymen. At all times and on 
all t)Ccasion3, in public an I in private, I have endeavored, 
according to the convictions of my judgment, to advance 
the cause of emancipation. I have been a candidate lor 
seven years in succession tor this House or the Senate, and 
have never, to my knowledge, received the vote of a soli- 
tary political abolitionist; and, shouM I ever again be a 
candidate for pubhc office (which I do not anticipate), never 
expect to receive from one a vote. I hoj^te, therefore, that 
no more insinu itions will be tlirown out that I only wish 
to court and please a ' a little knot of political abolition- 
ists.' At any r.ite, I shall not shrink from the periorra- 
ance of duty from any such insinuations here or else- 
wheie. I have said that I have no connection with the 
Liberty party ; yet I am free to say that 1 am ready to 
Ibrget the past, to let bygones be bygones, and to act with 
any set of men — Whigs, Democrats, Liberty men, or old 
organizationists — in all lawful and constitutional measures 
that shall tend to arrest the extension, and overthrow the 
entire system, of slavery in America. It is time for the 
friends of freedom to bury minor differences of opinion, 
and march shoulder to shoulder, with lock-step, against 
the slave-])ower. How stands Massachusetts at this t me ? 
What is her position in reference to slavery? As long ago 
as 1838, during the presidency of Mr. Van Buren, an ef- 
fort was made to bring Texas into the Union. The subject 
was brought before the legislature ; and the late lamented 
James C. Alvord of Greenfield, then a member of the Sen- 
ate, made a very able report on the subject, concluding 
witii resolutions against the admission of Texas, which 
were unanimously adopted as the sense of the people of 
the Commonwealth. And in 1843, when the Democratic 
party had the control of the State government, a resolution 



68 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

was likewise unanimously passed, setting forth the evils of 
annexation, and dt-claring that under ' no circumstances 
whatever would Massachusetts consent to it.' In 1844, 
when rumors were rife that the administration of John 
Tyler, — which has been aptly called a * gigantic juke,' — 
casting about for popular themes which should give it 
a chance for a renewed term, had pitched upon this 
project of annexation, the legislature, by nearly a unani- 
mous vote, passed resolutions that such annexation would 
be a ' palpable violation of the Cimstitution, a deliberate 
assault uptm its compromises.' I know very well, and 
everybody knows very well, that the Democracy have 
abandoned the position we all then assumed. . . . But 
the deed has been done. The last act in this great drama 
of national guilt and infamy has been performed. Texas 
has been admitted. She is now a sister State. She has 
been admitted in violation of the Constitution, and under 
circumstances which leave but little doubt that the measure 
was carried by corruption, — by a free use of the patron- 
ao-e of the executive. Men who had committed themselves 
against it, and whose constituents were strongly opposed to 
it, also voted for it, and have since received their reward 
by appointment to places of honor and emolument. 

" We must now act. We are in a position where we can- 
not stand still with honor and dignity. We can a I opt 
three courses of action, — say and do nothing; stand just 
where we now are, and win, as win we should, the unenvi- 
able reputation of talking loud beforehand ; and, when the 
act is finally accomplished, shutting our mouths in silence, 
and submitting to the wrong without a nuirmur. Such a 
position is one of shame and humiliation, unworthy of old 
Massachusetts. 

*' We may declare that this gross outrage of the General 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 69 

Government is an entire revolution, wliicli will justify Mas- 
sachusetts in dissolving all connection with the govern- 
ment. We may declare our independence, withdraw 
our delegation from Congress, exercise exclusive jurisdic- 
tion over our territory, and maintain it by force. Very few 
will recommend such a course of action. Such a step 
would doubtless lead to bloodshed, which few can contem- 
plate without horror. Were the people ready and pre- 
pared for it, the circumstances would not, could not, jus- 
tify such action. What, then, can we do ? We can jjledge 
all the moral, social, and political power of the Common- 
wealth against slavery, and for freedom. We will remain 
in the Union ; but we remain tliere to fight the battles of 
freedom. We will stand by the Constitution : but we 
stand by it to rescue and defend it from the slave-power ; 
to exercise all its just powers for the overthrow of slavery. 
We can dedicate ourselves to freedom, and wage eternal 
hostility to slavery and its power. This is, in my judg- 
ment, the only true course for Massachusetts to take. Her 
duty to the country, and her own honor and dignity, de- 
mand that she should take that position, and maintain it 
with unfaltering devotion." 

Having forcibly discussed the allegations of the pream- 
ble to the resolution, he continued : — 

" Sir, this republic was based uj)on the grand idea of 
the freedom and equality of all men ; and yet now, in 
the middle part of the nineteenth century, — in this age 
of light and knowledge illuminating our pathway, — it has 
committed itself against freedom, and for slavery. And 
so it stands committed before all nations, and before Him 
who has declared that ' righteousness exalteth a nation^ and 
sin is a reproach to any people.'' Our position before the 
world is now one of diso-race and shame ; and there is no 



70 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON". 

true American, who cares any thing for the fame and glory 
of his country, that does not blush for his native land. 
We are drawing upon ourselves the scorn and derision of 
the universe. With the friends of freedom abroad we 
are fast losing sympathy and character. It is the universal 
sentiment all over the civilized world, that we are false 
and recreant to the principles of our own Constitution. 
Even tlie great and good Lafayette declared, a short time 
before his death, to Clarkson, that he 7iever would have 
drawn his sword for America if he had knoivn he was aid- 
ing to found a slaveholding rejmhlic. 

"At the present time, Mr. Speaker, slavery governs the 
country : it holds possession of the government, and its 
vast power is everywhere seen and felt. Its eye is fixed 
upon California, an I turned tOAvards Cuba; and Mr. Cd- 
houn has even gone so far as to send a secret and special 
agent to Hayii to stir up a rebellion for the purpose of 
crushing tlie nei^ro repubhc. S avery has its sleepless 
eye upon the rich pro\inces of the Mexican re|'ubhc. 
Our own gifted Prescott may yet live to write again ' The 
Conquest of Mexico,' not by the S|)nnish, but by the 
An<>lo-Saxon race; and for what? Simply, solely, and 
singly, for the extension of negro slavery over those fair 
and rich fields. 

" The effects of slavery upon the whites and the blacks, 
upon the moral, social, and intellectual condition of the 
people, are visible to the most casual observer. It lias left 
its impress upon man, upon institutions and society, and 
upon the face of Nature. Like the fabled upas-tree, it blasts, 
withers, and consumes all of life that comes within the cir- 
cle of its influence. Of the five millions of wiiite population 
in the slave States, only about three hundi-ed thousand! are 
slaveholders ; the great mass of the population being poor, 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVES. 71 

ignorant, and degraded, many of them but little, if any, 
above the slaves : and slavery has reduced them to that 
condition. The soil is cut up into vast estates, owned by 
a few aristocrats who disdain labor, and despise the laborer. 
Common schools, the glory of New England, hardly exist; 
and education is almost unknown by the mass of the ])eo- 
ple. It is our boast in New England that our soil is divided 
into small estates ; that its cultivators stand upon their own 
acres, which they till ; and that education is accessible to all 
our people. These are the main su])ports of our republi- 
can institutions. What are the results of the two systems ? 
One system has, for example, made Massachusetts the pat- 
tern State of the Union : the other has made old Virginia, 
the mother of States and of statesmen, a poor and drivel- 
ling commonwealth, with a broken-down and i)roud aris- 
tocracy (mere pensioners upon the government for menial 
and petty offices), and a helpless and dissipated peojjle. 
Such is the legitimate result of slavery everywhere ; and 
nothing can be more preposterous than the idea of sustain- 
ing republican institutions in a land of slavery. It has. 
ever been the bane of empires. It corrupted and destroyed 
the ancient republics. It has retarded the progress of the 
race. It destroyed the Roman republic ; it corrupted her 
aristocracy ; it annihilated the democracy, impoverished 
the masses, and converted them into paupers that were 
fed from the public crib. We talk of Caesar's crossing the 
Rubicon, and prostrating the liberties of his country : Ro- 
man liberty had perished forever before Caisar returned 
from his Northern conquests. When Tiberius Gracchus, 
seeing and comprehending the tendencies of slavery, at- 
tempting to ari'est its corrupting influence by dividing the 
public domain into small estates, — thus creating an inde- 
pendent yeomanry that should preserve and perpetuate 



72 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

the liberties of the commonwealth, — fell with three hun- 
dred of his followers in the Forum beneath the blows of the 
slaveholding aristocracy, and his body was thrown into 
the Tiber, that day the liberties of Rome went down, to 
rise no more forever. We talk of the Northern barbari- 
ans despoilino; Italy. Before the Scythians left their rude 
huts in the North, and crossed the Alps, the rich fields of 
Italy had been converted into barrenness and desolation by 
the barbarism of slavery, so that those once fertile fields 
would only yi^^ld one-third as much as our own cold, sterile 
soil of New England. Look at the once proud monarchy of 
Spain. For three centuries the gold and the silver of the 
New World were poured into her coffers. It seems now that 
the hand of God was upon her, avenging the wrongs of the 
black and red man. 

" The issue is now clearly made up. Slavery assumes 
to direct and control the nation. The friends of freedom 
must meet the issue. Freedom and slavery are now 
arrayed against each other. We must destroy slavery, or 
.it will destroy liberty. The path of duty is plain. We 
are bound to exert our utmost efforts to restore our govern- 
ment to its original and pristine purity. The contest is a 
glorious one ; and let us be cheered by the fact that the 
bold and daring efforts of the slave-power to arrest the 
progress of free principles have awakened and aroused 
the country. True, that power has won a briUiant victory 
in the acquisition of Texas ; yet it is only one victory in 
her series of victories over the constitution and liberties of 
the country. Other fields are to be fouglit ; and if we 
are true to the country, to freedom, and to man, the future 
lias yet a Waterloo in store for the supporters of this unholy 
system. The tendencies of the age we live in are all against 
slavery ; the progress of literature and science is against it ; 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF EEPEESENTATIVES. 73 

every thing that is beautifal and holy in the works of God 
is against it ; God himself is against it ; and, sooner or later, 
fall it must. Let us not be the last to engage in the good 
work. 

" Sir, I wish for the adoption of this resolution, because 
thereby Massachusetts would take an entirely new and 
noble position. It is clear, distinct, and plain in its terms, 
and is based upon the aggressions of slavery itself upon 
freedom, the liberties, the rights, of the people of the coun- 
try. It pledges Massachusetts to resist to the utmost all 
extension of the accursed institution, and to use all her just 
powers for the entire extinction of the whole system. Let 
her adopt this sentiment, and act in accordance with it. I 
wish that it could be written, in the words of Daniel Web- 
ster, ' in letters of light on the blue arch of heaven, be- 
tween Orion and the Pleiades,' so that every one might 
see and read it, and ponder upon it. But I am not one to 
believe that our whole duty will have been discharged by 
the adoption of a resolution of this character. We must 
make its principles a living faith. We must sustain it at 
any cost and at any sacrifice. We must send to the halls 
- of Congress men ready and willing at all times to support 
it. We must carry it into every department of our govern- 
ment, and bring the whole moral force and power of the 
State to bear in favor of it ; and in doing this we shall at 
last inevitably succeed. 

" It is asked what we of the North can do. Sir, we 
can prevent slavery from ever gaining a foothold in the 
vast Territories of the republic ; and we can abolish it in 
the District of Columbia. And, in regard to this point, we 
of Massachusetts are just as responsible for the existence 
of slavery there as are the people of any State in the 
Union : and are more guilty than some ; for we sin against 



74 LIFE OF HEKRY WILSON. 

our own convictions. In that District the prisons of our 
own government are converted into slave-pens ; and side 
by side with our national public edifices are private prisons, 
where our fellow-beings are immured, and kept for sale like 
cattle. I have visited one, and have seen crowds of slaves 
awaiting purchasers, thence to be sent to the cotton-fields 
and sugar-plantations of the far South-west. One of our 
own representatives told me that he saw at the railroad 
d^p6t a poor negro woman torn away from her children, 
shrieking in the bitterness of her agony, and reproaching 
her owner for the violation of his promise that she should 
not be separated from her offspring. A distinguished mem- 
ber of Congress from South Carolina was his companion at 
the time, and exclaimed, ' Great God ! what a sight is here ! 
no wonder that you of the North are abolitionists ! ' We 
can stop this in the District of Columbia, and abolish 
throughout the country this vile inter-state slave-trafiic ; 
and the world and God will hold us to a fearful responsibil- 
ity until we do it. 

" Then the revenue force of the government is now 
used to prevent the escape of fugitive slaves ; the garrisons 
are used for prisons, and the army is the mere body-guard 
of slavery ; the navy, if not created, is used almost wholly 
(at least the home squadron), for the protection of the do- 
mestic slave-trade. The General Government can correct 
all this ; and, were that government to exercise its consti- 
tutional right and power, slavery would die. The free 
States, and Massachusetts among them, are responsible for 
this ; for they have the power to do it, and do not exercise 
it. They can bring the whole force and power of the gov- 
ernment to bear in favor of liberty. They can change the 
provisions of the Constitution and the laws which now pro- 
tect slave-property. As the Constitution now stands, a 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OP EEPEESENTATIVES. 75 

slave escaping here lias no refuge, no protection ; and the 
soil of our own State has long been the slaveholder's hunt- 
ing-ground. The panting and fleeing fugitive, with blood- 
hounds at his heels, may enter Faneuil Hall, and he is still 
a slave. He may cast himself down under the shadow of 
yonder monument, and he is still a slave. He may come 
into this very chamber, or penetrate to the council-chamber 
of the executive for protection, and he is still a slave, and 
his master can drag him away into bondage. The law and 
the Constitution that allow this can be changed, as well, 
also, as that provision which allows a representative of slave- 
property in the national councils. This subject was once 
acted upon by this legislature ; and, though then unsuccess- 
ful, repeated and constant effort will enable us to accom- 
plish the end. But we are met with the assertion that the 
slaveholders have rights under the Constitution, and that 
the existence of their property was guaranteed by that 
instrument. Now, / undertake to say that the Constitu- 
tion was made for a free people. The whole history of 
the country from 1774 to the adoption of the Constitution 
proves this. The first Congress which met in 1774 de- 
clared, — 

" ' That they would not import or purchase any slaves ; 
that they would not be concerned in the trade themselves ; 
and that they would neither purchase slaves, use ships in 
the slave-trade, or sell their commodities and manufactures 
to those engaged in that traffic' 

" The Congress of 1774 declared, ' God never intended 
a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, 
and an unbounded power over, others.' 

" The ordinance of 1787 for the government of the 
North-west Territory, drawn up by a distinguished son 
of Massachusetts, expressly and forever prohibited sla- 



76 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

very throu2;liout that vast region. From 1775 to 1789, 
six of the States aboHshed slavery within their limits. If 
we look at the Madison papers, and into the debates of the 
several State conventions for the adoption of the Con- 
stitution, we shall find it established as clear as noonday 
light, that the framers of the Constitution never enter- 
tained the idea of the long continuance, far less the spread, 
of this great wrong ; but the universal opinion was that 
slavery would soon die out, and be forever extinguished. 
Such was the opinion of the Washingtons, Jeffersons, 
Madisons, Henrys, Masons, and Martins of the South ; of 
the Jays, Gerrys, Hancocks, Rushes, Adamses, Franklins, 
and Hamiltons of the North. They thought that every- 
where the institution would soon pass away under the 
influence of our higher civilization and larger liberty. 
The whole concurrent testimony of all these great men, 
some of whom were among the purest and best characters 
the world has ever produced, proves that they all held 
this opinion and held this belief. We had no statesmen 
then who believed that ' slavery was the corner-stone of 
the republican edifice.' 

" But, say some, the abolitionof slavery and the agitation 
of the subject will lead to dissolution of the Union. Now, 
sir, I profess to be, and am, as strongly attached as any 
man to the union of these States. From boyhood I have 
been taught to regard disunion — in the words of Daniel 
Webster — as plunging the country into ' the gulf of fire 
and blackness.' I wish to see the whole country, from 
North to South, from the shores of the Atlantic to those 
of the Pacific, one country, great, glorious, and free, — 
an example for all the nations. I am for ' liberty and 
union ; " but it must be ' liberty and union.' At all 
events, I am for liberty ; and if dissolution of the Union 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 77 

must be the result of the aboHtion of slavery, or of lawful 
and constitutional action, wiiy, then, let that dissolution 
come. Let the Union go; the sooner, the better. Better 
have liberty without union than union without liberty. 
But let me ask of these grave and conservative gentlemen 
wlio deprecate the agitation of this question, who would 
keep the subject of slavery out of sight forever, lest its 
discussion shovild hazard the perpetuity of the Union, or 
change or modify existing institutions, would they, if 
living at the time, have been found among the small flock 
gathered around Brewster and Robinson on the wild, 
barren heaths of Lincolnshire ? Would they have been 
on board ' The Mayflower ' ? Would they have gathered 
with them in council to lay in prayers the foundation 
of a Christian commonwealth ? Would they have been 
among the choice spirits rallying around and support- 
ing Adams and Hancock? Would they have followed 
Warren to Bunker Hill ? No, sir ; no ! They would 
have preached moderation. They would have kept aloof 
from the contests, if possible ; have left the country 
rather than meet the crisis ; and, if compelled to take 
a decisive part, would probably have been found arrayed 
against liberty, and on the side of the stronger power. 
They worship the past, gild their fathers' sepulchres, but 
crucify all that is noble of the present. Such men as 
these now call themselves conservators of our institutions, 
and oppose all attempts to agitate the momentous ques- 
tion of the aboHtion of slavery. Away with such stuft ! 
I am sick of it. He alone is the true conservative who 
takes his stand on the foundation of justice and right, 
and maintains that position to the last. 

" Our opponents seek to portray in vivid colors the ter- 
rible dangers that would attend the abolition of slavery. 
7* 



78 LTTE OF HENRY WILSON. 

But look at this a moment. Eight of our States have 
emancipated all the slaves within their borders, and no 
difficulty whatever has followed. None of these dreadful 
evils have occurred ; but, on the contrary, every thing has 
worked well, and to the greatly-increased prosperity of 
such States. And we have a more recent example in the 
British West-India islands, where circumstances were 
infinitely more unfavorable to the success of emancipation 
than they are with us ; where the planters to a man 
were deadly opponents of the scheme ; where the blacks 
and slaves were as nearly ten to one of the whites free. 
Yet the pi'oject was carried out, and no harm has been the 
result : so far from it, indeed, that, whereas nearly all the 
planters were bankrupt before the abolition, their condition 
is now vastly more prosperous ; and whereas the slaves 
were then dying off at the rate of five thousand per yeai', 
under the pressure of the lash, to save the island from 
bankruptcy, the health and condition, moral, social, and 
intellectual, of the colored race, now free, has greatly, 
almost wonderfully, improved. All this is established by 
irrefragable testimony ; and it far outweighs all the argu- 
ments and fears, real or j)retended, of the opponents of 
emancipation. 

" This emancipation of the West-India slaves was con- 
ceived and carried out, not by the planters and owners of 
the slaves, but by England. This very act is the brightest 
gem in her diadem of glory. It will live forever in the 
remembrance of mankind, even if the memory of her 
arms, literature, and arts, the achievements of her 
Nelson and Wellington, the works of her Shakspeare 
and Milton, should pass away into oblivion. If her 
power should be broken forever, and if she should to- 
morrow sink beneath the ocean, and the waves of the 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OP EEPEESENTATTVES. 79 

Atlantic roll over the place where she now stands, still the 
renown of this great work, by which she taxed her own 
people a hundred millions of dollars, and gave liberty to 
eight hundred thousand men three thousand miles away 
sunk in the lowest depths of degradation, will endure 
through all time, and be quoted and commended by the 
lovers of freedom. Sir, it Avas the saying of a famous 
Athenian that the glory of his rival would not permit 
him to sleep. I trust that the glory England has acquired 
by this measure will not suffer us of America to slumber 
till we have emulated her example. I love not England ; 
I am not dazzled by her power : but I envy her the glory 
of that great achievement. 

" But we are again met with the argument that we are 
a commercial people, and cannot afford to disturb our rela- 
tions with the rest of the country. Now, it is a notorious 
fact that the slave States do not pay dollar for dollar what 
they purchase from us. I know what I say ; for I have 
examined the subject. There are many manufacturing 
towns and villages in our State that have lost hundreds of 
thousands of dollars by their dealings with the South : my 
own town has large business-connections there, and has 
been one of the sufferers. Our prosperity, so universally 
diffused among us, is the result of ceaseless and untiring 
industry. Slavery, sir, cannot support itself. The slave- 
holding power draws its living from the heart's blood of 
the slave, and the toil and the sweat of the hard-handed 
free laborer of the North. Our mariners brave the dan- 
gers and endure the tempests of the deep ; our farmers 
till a hard and barren soil, for a scanty subsistence ; our 
mechanics and artisans labor all their days at their foi'ges 
and in their work-shops ; and a great part of the fruit of 
their honest toil is draw^n from them to support the slave 



80 LIFE OF HENRY AVILSON. 

aristocracy of the Southern States. What they cannot wliip 
out of their negroes they cheat out of us. I would rather 
that our noble ships that now whiten every sea should go 
down to their graves beneath the dark rolling billows of the 
deep, and our manufacturing villages be levelled with the 
dust, so that a squadron of cavalry could gallop over them 
unimpeded as the wild steeds sweep over the ruined cities 
of the desert, than that Massachusetts should forget her 
duty, forsake her principles, and bow down and crawl and 
grovel at the feet of the slave-power. Better, far better, 
that her sons should till her cold and barren soil, and cast 
their nets into the deep for a poor subsistence, than that 
her coffers should be filled with gold soiled and dimmed 
by the blood and tears of the bondman. 

" We are often told, sir, that this agitation of slavery 
can do no good ; that it has thrown back emancipation for 
half a century. This is all sheer nonsense. Emancipation 
is not only nearer in point of time, but it is nearer in 
point of preparation. We often hear the same sage and 
profound observations upon the great and kindred cause of 
temperance, and with just as much reason. The pi-ess, at 
least in the free States, now often utters its voice for the 
slave; faint and feeble, it is true, l^en years ago it was 
dumb, or sided with the oppressor. Religious societies and 
associations are discussing and deciding upon it. The 
cause of the slave is now advocated in most of our North- 
ern pulpits : the religious sentiment of the land is setting 
in favor of the poor bondman, recognizing him as a man 
and a brother. The friends of freedom can utter their 
sentiments now without being, beaten down by mobs of 
' gentlemen of property and standing.' A great change 
has also taken place in the slave States. Ten years ago it 
was dangerous to utter a word against slavery in the 



SPEECH IK THE HOUSE OF EEPRESENTATIVES. 81 

capital of the nation : now one can speak of slavery out 
of the halls of Congress with freedom. It can be estab- 
lished by tlie records and reports of the religious societies 
of the Southern States that more has been accomplislied for 
the improvement of the slave than at any similar time in 
our history. We are told that we shall stand alone. I 
have no objection to that if we stand in the right. Massa- 
chusetts is used to standing alone. The gentleman from 
Stockbridge (Mr. Byington), upon another question the 
other day, said that Massachusetts exerted a vast influence 
on the new States of the confederacy, and that many of her 
sons went forth to mould and fasliion her institutions. It 
is all true : and yet, notwithstanding she has long been the 
pattern State of the Union, she is under the ban of the 
empire ; she is regarded with a jealous eye, and as little 
better than a conquered province. Her people are almost 
ostracized by the government. An occasional sop is now 
and then thrown out to some of them if they are false to her, 
and true to the peculiar institution ; and, for one, I wish 
that not a single individual of her people could be found 
willing to take office under the National Government while 
wedded to slavery. Let us have one of Cromwell's self- 
denvino- ordinances while the government remains as it now 
is. If it be her destiny to stand alone in support of the right, 
alone let her stand, — alone, sir, in the language of one of 
her sons who now sleeps by the banks of the Connecticut, — 

ALONE LET HER STAND IN SOLITARY GRANDEUR. When 

the passions of the hour shall be hushed, I desire that the 
historic pen' that shall record in letters of light for the 
study of after-ages the acts of this great struggle shall 
record the glorious flict, that there was one State, one free 
Commonwealth, that was faithful among the faithless to the 
teachings of the founders of the republic. 



82 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

" But she will not stand alone if she does her duty. Look 
at the present condition of affiiirs in the former Gibraltar 
of the slave-power of the North, and behold a proof of this. 
Not Georgia, nor even South Carolina herself, has ever 
been more subservient and obsequious to the will of the 
slaveholding portion of the country than has New Hamp- 
shire ; yet her granite hills are shaking and trembling to- 
day to the earthquake-voice of her citizens, aroused at last 
to a conviction of their duties and their rights. So will it 
be elsewhere. 

" Let Massachusetts but do her duty, and other States 
•will rally round her, and she will lead them on to the 
rescue of the constitution and the government from the 
slave-power. Her high and lofty principles, her stern and 
lofty purposes, may be sneered at and derided ; timid 
friends may chide her : but the stout-hearted and true all 
over the land will gather round her. Standing on the 
broad and elevated platform of equal rights, living out 
and illustrating her own great principles, she will speak to 
her sister States with a thousand tongues. She will come 
to the rescue. She will be the standard-bearer in the 
contest. She led the van in the great struggle for inde- 
pendence: then the post' of danger v/as hers. She has a 
right to lead now. Her descent from the sturdy old Puri- 
tan stock, her free labor and her free schools, all point 
her out as the leader in the great struggle between freedom 
and slavery. South Carolina has placed herself in ad- 
vance as the leader of the cohorts of slavery. Let the 
descendants of the old Cavaliers and Puritans meet 
once more, not as their fathers met on the fields of 
Naseby and Worcester, but in the stern conflict of opin- 
ion. I have no fears for the issue. Every thing will 
be with us : the free impulses of the age will be with 



SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF EEPEESENTATIVES. 83 

US ; civilization will be with us ; the wild and generous 
impulses of the human heart will be with us ; and God will 
be with us. Cassius M. Clays will arise in all the slave 
States, pointing them to our example. 

" Our country was the child of hope and expectation. 
When our fathers launched our government upon the tide, 
the prayers, hopes, and sympathies of the friends of liberal 
institutions throughout the globe were with us. The 
oppressed began to hope for self-government ; and they 
looked hither with trembling anxiety to see how we should 
carry out in practice our sublime declaration of the equality 
and freedom of all men. We- have not, perhaps, lived in 
vain. Had America been true to herself, to her own 
sublime principles, the friends of religious, social, and 
civil liberty everywhere would have taken courage from 
her example, and the oppressors of our race would have 
loosed their hold upon unjust power : there is hardly a 
thi-one upon the globe but would now be tottering to its 
fall. Ours is the duty, be ours the glory, to rescue our 
country from the ' dominion, curse, and shame of slavery, 
and make her gi'eat and glorious among the nations.' 
The past with its crowded memories of the tears and labors 
of the martyrs of truth who have perished on the field, 
the scaffold, and in the dungeon, the present with its warm 
and generous sympathies, and the futui'e with its high 
hopes and brilliant expectations, all cheer us onward in the 
path of duty and of glory. 

" I do not wish to ' allude to parties ; ' and yet I cannot well 
avoid it. I have recommended that the State should take 
a bold stand against slavery ; and I am willing that the 
majority here shall be held responsible for it, as they will 
surely be. It is alike undeniable and notorious, that, during 
the struggles of the last ten years, the party now in the 



84 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

majority here has generally been arrayed on the side of 
liberty on all the incidental questions that have arisen. It 
has gone just far enough to lose the confidence and sym- 
pathy of the South, and to encounter defeat in almost 
every thing ; but it has not gone far enough to gain the 
entire confidence and obtain the support of the free im- 
pulses of the North. On the other hand, our opponents, 
the party liere in the minority, it is equally notorious 
and undeniable, have usually sided with the slave-power 
on all the questions connected with the interests of slavery ; 
and they stand in that, posture to-day, committed — fully 
and entirely committed — to slavery and the slave-power. 

" Thus far they have reaped all the advantages of such 
subserviency ; but hereafter, when, in the contests of the 
future, a day of reti'ibution shall come, — as come it surely 
will, — they will find themselves by their own folly placed 
in a position of shame, defeat, and disgrace, as opponents 
of the progress of liberty, enliglitenment, and civilization. 

"Sir, I wish to have 'Emancipation ' inscribed on the ban- 
ners under which we rally, in ciiaracters of living light, 
and also that we go for ' the protection of man.' We go 
for the protection of his labor : let us give security, first 
to himself, and afterwards to his labor. That is the true 
ground we must take ; and, if it be taken boldly and man- 
fully, I am willing to risk myself, and all that I have or 
hope for, on the issue, confident that in five years our 
cause will sweep through the country like a tornado. We 
shall carry every free State with a whirlwind : it will go 
like the fire over the prairies of the West. If not, we are 
accustomed to defeat; and it is far better to be in the right 
than to hold the reins of government, and roll in wealth 
and power. I say without hesitation, that the stand I have 
spoken of we must take. We cannot resist so doing if 



SPEECH EST THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 85 

Ave would. It is our ' manifest destiny.' Even were we 
base enoao;h to desire it, we could not regain our influence 
with the slaveholding South by any means ; no, not by the 
veriest servile and wretched truckling to all her arrogant 
demands. I would not regain it if we could. Then, in 
Heaven's name, let us goon in the right. If victory come, 
let us liail and improve it ; if, on the contrary, defeat be 
our lot, it will be a glorious defeat; for we shall have 
been right, and shall have deserved success. At any rate, 
we shall do something for our race, something for liberty, 
which will secure for us the confidence and the respect of 
the good and the true. A single word, Mr. Speaker, of 
a personal character, and I shall have done. I have ever 
been and am a party man ; and I shall always go with my 
party in what I think right and best: but I am de- 
termined never to be either di-iven or kicked out of any 
party with which I may choose to act ; and it is my pride 
to believe that four-fifths of the party now in the majority 
in this State concur in the view I take of this subject, and 
are anxious that we should commit Massachusetts against 
slavery. It is so especially with regard to the young men, 

— those who are shortly to hold the reins of power. The 
city influence is, I know, the other way ; but, sir, ' the 
gods of the valleys are not the gods of the hills.' 

" For one, I am ready to stand with any man, or set of 
men, — Whig, Democrat, Abolitionist, Christian, or Infidel, 

— who will go with me in the cause of emancipation. 

" It is unpleasant to me to say what I have now said; it 
is painful to differ from esteemed and respected friends 
whose good opinion we value. I know the feelings of 
many who hear me. All sorts of unworthy motives will 
be ascribed to me, and my judgment and discretion ques- 
tioned. Sir, I have no personal motive : I see nothing to 



86 LIFE OF HENRY WPLSON. 

be gained, and something to be lost. At any rate, I know 
I shall lose the good opinion of some friends, who will 
doubtless regard me as a fanatic. But I have made up 
my mind, after some little reflection, that we must either 
destroy slavery, or slavery will destroy our government 
arid our liberties ; and I had far rather act according to 
the dictates of duty and of patriotism than to receive the 
approving smiles of friends. I shall go for the abolition 
of slavery at all times and on all occasions, now and 
hereafter. I loathe, detest, and abhor it. It is at war with 
Nature and Nature's God. 

" I have no apologies to make for it ; and no hope of 
political reward, no fear of ridicule or reproach, shall ever 
deter me from using all the moral and political influence I 
possess, in such a manner as my judgment shall approve, 
to accomplish the entire extinction of slavery, and to make 
my native land, which I love with the affection of a son, 
what it should be, — glorious and free, and an example to 
all nations." 

This resolution, so ably advocated, was, after much dis- 
cussion and excitement, adopted in the House by ninety- 
three majority : in the Senate, which was more conserva- 
tive, it was lost by four votes. In the minds of the people 
it lived, inspiring noble hearts, and calling to the rescue 
of the bondman. 

Mr. Wilson was no revolutionist, except throng! 
constitutional and legal means. He loved the Union : he 
had no desire in any event, as an aggressor, to appeal to 
arms. He believed, that, under the Constitution, Southern 
men had no right to extend slavery over our territorial 
domains ; and on that ground he would meet the question. 
When, on the 31 of March, he presented to the House a 



SPEECH EST THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 87 

memorial from Francis Jackson for the withdrawal from 
Congress of the Massachusetts delegation, and the conse- 
quent dissokition of the Union, he declared that he held 
the right of petition sacred ; that he was for the abolition 
of slavery : but, continued he, " it must be accomplislied 
under, by, and through the Constitution ; " not by violence, 
but by " sovereign law," the " collected will " of the peo- 
ple, which 

" O'er tin-ones and globes elate, 
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." 



CHAPTER VI. 

POPULARITY WITH THE PEOPLE. FORMATION OF THE 

FREE-SOIL PARTY. COURSE IN THE STATE LEGISLA- 
TURE. ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO GOV. KOSSUTH. 



of the People. — Delegate to the National Convention. — Withdraws 
from that Body.— Origin of the Free-soil Party. — " Boston Republican." 

— Editor of. —Its Principles and Influence.— Chairman of Free-soil State 
Committee. — Member of the House, 1S50. — Mr. Webster's 7th-of-March 
Speech. —The Coalition. — Election of Mr. Sumner to United-States 
Senate, 1851.— Mr. Sumner's Letter. — Mr. Wilson made Chairman of the 
Senate that Year. — Address on taking the Chair. —A Contrast.— " The 
Liberator." — Harvard University. — Thanks of the Senate, and Closing 
Address. — Delegate to Pittsburg. — Candidate for Congress, 1852. — Chair- 
man of the Senate, 1852. — His Course in the Senate. — Welcome to Kossuth. 

— Sympathy between them. —His Punctuality. — Gold Watch. 

IN the autumn of 1847 Mr. Wilson declined being a 
candidate for the legislature ; but through his generous 
symputhies, temperate habits, and uprightness as a man, 
his intelligence and sagacity as a legishitor, and his steady 
adherence to the principles of human freedom and tlie 
interests of the working-classes, he was stdl gaining the 
respect and confidence of the people. Even those who 
looked contemptuously upon him as rising from the work- 
shop of a shoemal\er were obliged to admit his eminent 
ability as a speaker and leader. His bold, direct, and 
logical speech, in the House of the last year, on slavery. 



POPULAEITY WITH THE PEOPLE. 89 

had turned the thoughts of the abolitionists to him as their 
legislative champion. 

The laboring-people, from whom he had sprung, and of 
whose opinions he was, periiaps, the best exponent in the 
State, were proud of his success, and entertained for him 
increasing admiration and esteem. They held even then 
— for in this country tliey have always had the clearest 
visicm of impending crises — that we were on the eve of 
great political events, and that he would be the man for 
the occasion. 

On the death of John Quincy Adams in February, 
1848, and the conseqvient vacancy in the House of Repre- 
sentatives, a Whig convention was held in Dedham to 
select a candidate to supply his place. The three leading 
men for whom that body had a preference were Henry 
Wilson, William Jackson, and Horace Mann. After" the 
third balloting, Mr. Wilson withdrew his name in favor 
of Mr. Mann, who was nominated. The convention then, 
by an almost unanimous vote, appointed Mr. Wilson 
delegate to the Whig National Convention to be held in 
Philadelphia in the ensuing month of June. He sup- 
ported Mr. Webster for president in that convention on 
account of his principles in favor of liberty ; yet he had 
misiiivings in regard to this statesman's position on this 
question, which were sadly realized in 1850. He had 
previously declared in public and in private, that if 
Gen. Taylor should receive the vote of tlie Wiiig party in 
that convention, unpledged to the Wilmot Proviso, he not 
only would not support him, but would do all in his power 
to defeat him. The convention nominated Gen. Taylor 
for the presidency. Mr. Wilson, and his colleague Mr. 
Charles Allen, denounced the action of the convention, 
and, retiring from it, held a meeting of a few Northern 



90 LIFE OF HEKBY WILSOK. 

men, and appointed a committee, who, with others, called 
the Buffalo Convention, where Mr. Van Buren received 
the nomination. 

Returning home, Mr. Wilson and his associates held a 
convention in the city of Worcester on the 28th of June. 
It was large and enthusiastic. The subserviency of the 
Whig party to the interests of the South was fully dis- 
cussed, and its inadequacy and unwilhngness to meet the 
demands of freedom and the progressive spirit of the age 
were most eloquently set forth. For the vindication of 
free labor, for the maintenance of freedom in the Ter- 
ritories, for resistance to the aggressive policy of the 
South, which both Northern Whigs and Democrats, though 
to some extent in words opposing, still accepted in acts, 
the organization of the Free-soil party was begun. " A 
few days after," Mr. Wilson said, " I called on Mr. Web- 
ster at his own request ; and he expressed his cordial 
assent to the principles of the convention." Untiring in 
his endeavors to arouse the North to a sense of the 
nation's injustice towards the slave, Mr. Wilson in Sep- 
tember purchased " The Boston Repubhcan," which he 
edited with signal ability from the autumn of 1848 to 
January, 1851, defending steadily the principles of free- 
dom, and holding an advanced position in civil, social, and 
political reform. It was the chief organ of the Free-soil 
party, of which he was the acknowledged leader ; and 
it was continued one year as a daily paper. The articles 
of agreement between Mr. Wilson and the publishers of 
the paper are dated Boston, Nov. 11, 1848 : " The sub- 
scribers, Henry Wilson of the first part, William S. Dam- 
rell of the second part, and Curtis C. Nichols of the third 
part, have this day formed a copartnership, to be known 
as the firm of Wilson, Damrell, and Co., for the purpose of 



FORMATION OF THE FREE-SOIL PARTY. 91 

publishing ' The Daily Republican,' ' Semi-weekl)^ Repub- 
lican,' and ' Weekly Emancipator and Republican.' " The 
political creed of the paper was, " No extension of slavery 
over the Territories ; no more slave territory to be added 
to the Union ; no more slave States to be admitted into 
the Union ; no compromise with slavery must be made." 
Mr. Wilson wrote most of the original articles, including 
the book-notices, for the paper; but was sometimes assisted 
by Mr. William S. Robinson and other political and literary 
friends. On retiring from the paper, he found that he had 
lost something like seven thousand dollars in the enter- 
prise ; yet it had been of essential service to the Free-soil 
party, and he cheerfully submitted to the pecuniary dam- 
age. It was an effective educator of the people in respect 
to the cardinal doctrines involved in that irresistible con- 
flict between free and slave labor which is now forever 
settled on this continent. 

Appointed chairman of the Free-soil State Committee 
in 1849, he most industriously labored, by the circulation 
of pamphlets and by delivering addresses in various sec- 
tions of the State, as well as through the columns of " The 
Republican," for the advancement of the party. Four 
years he spent in this capacity ; and they were years of 
ceaseless vigilance and toil : yet by these exertions he was 
not only deepening the antislavery sentiment of the State, 
but also gaining wisdom and experience for sterner effort 
and severer conflict. When Heaven has something great 
and good for any man to do, it prepares and proves him 
for the occasion. 

In 1850 Mr. Wilson was again a member of the lower 
branch of the State Legislature, where he labored with his 
accustomed zeal and energy. The Free-soil members gave 
him their votes for the speakership ; but he was not 



92 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

elected. He had been urged by liis own party and the 
Democrats in union to become a candidate for the Senate ; 
but he preferred a seat in the more popular body, as hav- 
ing broader influence. 

It was during the session of this legislature that Mr. 
Webster made his 7th-of-March speech on Mr. Clay's 
resolutions in the Senate of the United States. The senti- 
ment of the North was deeply wounded by it. Mr. Wilson 
fearlessly declared to the House that the people would 
repudiate that speech and those who should indorse it ; 
and that, at the next election, the deserters from the cause 
of freedom would surely find themselves deserted. His 
words, though meeting the defiance of many of the leading 
Whigs, pi'oved true. By the famous coalition of the 
Free-soil and the Democratic parties, the Whig party of 
Massachusetts, once so strong and so triumphant, was 
defeated. This coalition, Mr. Wilson, for the most part, 
organized. Calling together the State Committee and 
about seventy members of his own party at the Adams 
House in Boston in the summer of 1850, he declared to 
them that Mr. Webster's speech and Mr. Fillmore's timid 
administration could be condemned ; that a member of the 
Free-soil party could be sent to the United-States Senate 
to take the place of Mr. Webster (made secretary of 
state) for the long term, and a member of the Democratic 
party for the short term ; and that thus antislavery men 
could be brought to control the policy of the State. After 
a long and animated discussion, the meeting refused to 
form the coalition : but Mr. Wilson and his friends laid 
the scheme before the peo])le, who accepted it, and, 
through the legislature, elected George S. Boutwell as 
governor ; and the General Court, after a long and bitter 
contest and many ballotings, in 1851, sent Charles Sum- 



rOTlIVIATION OF THE FREE-SOIL PAHTY. 93 

ner to the United-States Senate for the long term, choos- 
ing; also Robert Rantoul, a Democrat, for the other term. 

Many causes — such as the persistent labors of antislavery 
men throu;^h public addresses and the press, the general 
awakening of the people to the insolent aggressions of the 
Southern demagogues, and the course of Mr. Webster — 
conspired to aid this triumph of the friends of freedom ; 
but all admitted that it was largely due to the sagacity, the 
organizing power, and the unremitting activity, of JNIr. 
Wilson. Periiaps no political movement had ever so 
aroused the people of Massachusetts, or had been so sig- 
nificant of her advance in liberal ideas. Hard and insult- 
ing names were freely bestowed upon the leader ; but he 
liad no time nor wish to strike " back-blows." 

The agency which he had in the election of Mr. Sum- 
ner to the Senate is recognized in the following frank 
avowal : — 

Cragie House, Cambridge, April 25, 1851. 

My dear Wilson, — I have this moment read your re- 
marks of last night, which I thiid'i peculiarly happy. You 
touched the right chord. I hope not to seem cold or 
churlish in thus withdrawing from all the j)ublic manifesta- 
tions of triumph to which our friends are prompted. In 
doing so, I follow the line of reserve which you know I 
have kept to throughout the contest ; and my best judg- 
ment at this moment satisfies me tiiat I am right. 

You who have seen me familiarly and daily from the 
beginning to the end will understand me, and, if need be, 
can satisfy those, who, taking counsel of their exultation, 
would have me mingle in the display. But I shrink from 
imposing any thing more upon you. 

To your ability, energy, determination, and fidelity 
our cause owes its present success. For weal or woe, you 



94 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

must take the responsibility of having placed me in the 
Senate of the United States. 

I am prompted also to add, that, while you have done all 
this, I have never heard from you a single suggestion of a 
selfish character, looking in any way to any good to your- 
self: your labors have been as disinterested as they have 
been effective. This consideration increases my personal 
esteem and gratitude. I trust that you will see that Mr. 
B.'s resolves are passed at once as they are, and the bill as 
soon as possible. Delay will be the tactics of the enemy. 
Sincerely yours, 

Charles Sumner. 

The Hon. Henry Wilson. 

This coalition sent Mr. Wilson to the State Senate for 
the session of 1851 by a majority of twenty-one hundred 
votes ; and he was then made president of that body. On 
taking the chair the first day of January, he made the 
following appropriate address : " Senators, I tender to 
you my sincere and grateful thanks for this expression of 
your confidence. In return, I promise to bring to the 
chair an earnest determination to perform its duties with 
fidelity and impartiality. Conscious of a want of experi- 
ence, I solicit 3^our indulgence. I feel that I occupy this 
place under the disadvantage of having been preceded by 
some of the most eminent men who have illustrated the 
legislative history of the Commonwealth. Relying, how- 
ever, on your friendly co-operation, I enter upon the per- 
formance of the task to which your partiality has called 
me. My hope is, that we shall so conduct our delibera- 
tions as not only to secure harmony among ourselves, but 
also to sustain those great principles which are conducive 
to the glory and the prosperity of the Commonwealth. 



COTJESE EST THE STATE LEGISLATUEE. 95 

Having clone this, we shall give back to the people the 
power they delegated to us, with the proud consciousness 
of having done sometliing to advance the ideas of freedom 
and progress, — something to promote the renown of the 
republic, and to cement that union which makes us one 
people." 

Eighteen years before, he was a friendless youth, home- 
less and penniless, seeking the privilege to toil for his 
daily bread ; but through untiring industry, undeviating 
steadiness to principle, through an unshaken confidence in 
human progress, and self-denying sacrifice for the relief of 
the oppressed, he raised himself, against persistent op- 
position, to this honorable post. It is the fortune of 
but few men to make such advancement in so brief a 
period; yet his success, so nobly merited and won, may 
serve as an encouragement to those, who, under adverse 
circumstances, are aspiring per virtutem ad gloriam. 

On the 21st of January, 1851, the anniversary of the 
twentieth year of the existence of " The Liberator " was 
held in Cochituate Hall ; when Mr. Wilson thus again 
expressed his views and hopes upon " the irrepressible 
conflict : " — 

" Sir, allusion has been made to-night to the 'small be- 
ginning of the great antislavery movement twenty years 
ago, when ' The Liberator' was launched u.pon the tide. 
These years have been years of devotion and of struggles 
unsurpassed in any age or in any cause. But, not- 
withstanding the treacheiy of public men, I venture to 
say that the cause of liberty is spreading throughout the 
whole land, and that the day is not far distant when 
brilliant victories for freedom will be won. We shall arrest 
the extension of slavery, and rescue the govenniient from 
the grasp of the slave-power ; we shall blot out slavery 



96 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

in tlie national capital ; we shall surround the slave States 
with a cordon of free States ; we shall then .appeal to the 
hearts and consciences of men ; and in a few years, not- 
withstanding the immense interests combined in the cause 
of oppression, we shall give liberty to the millions in bond- 
age. (Hear, liear.) I trust that many of us will live to 
see the chain stricken from the limbs of the last bondman 
in the republic ; but, sir, whenever that day shall come, 
living or dead, no name connected with the antlslavery 
movement will be dearer to the enfranchised milhons than 
the name of your guest, William Lloyd Garrison." (Pro- 
longed applause.) 

During this session of the Senate, Mr. Wilson took a 
leading part in obtaining an act for a third convention 
for revising the Constitution of the State ; in carrying 
the Homestead Exemption Bill, which reserved to the 
family of the insolvent debtor five hundred dollars from 
the hands of creditors ; in the fiercely-contested election 
of Mr. Sumner, carried in April over Mr. Winthrop ; and 
in securing the act for the re-organization of the board of 
overseers of Harvard University, by which they were to be 
chosen by joint ballot of both branches of the legislature, 
so that all sects and parties might be represented by their 
most competent men. 

On the 15th of May he vigorously defended the princi- 
ples of the Free-soil party, claiming it to be a Union con- 
stitutional organization, and in forcible terms rebuked the 
course of Mr. Webster. 

At the close of the session (May 23, 1851), it was or- 
dered that the " thanks of the Senate be presented to the 
Hon. Henry Wilson for the able, impartial, and satistactory 
manner in which he has discharged the duties of the 
chair." 



COURSE IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 97 

In reply, he said, — 

" Senators, this expression of your approbation excites 
in my bosom the hvehest emotions of gratitude. The 
uniform courtesy and kindness you have all, individually 
and collectively, extended to me through this protracted 
session, and the kind words now spoken, give me the most 
ample assurance that this vote is no formal or unmeaning 
compliment. Be assured, gentlemen, be assured, I shall 
ever fondly cherish the recollections of your many acts of 
kindness, until the heart upon which they are indelibly 
engraved ceases to beat forever." 

" Knowledge of human nature," said one of the daily 
journals of this season, and the art of winning the con- 
fidence of men, are among the chief elements of political 
efficiency; and, in addition to these. Gen. Wilson possesses 
a more powerful element of success in the whole-souled 
devotion with which he supports the cause of freedom." 

He was this year chosen vice-president of the Legisla- 
tive Temperance Society, and industriously availed himself 
of every occasion to promote the temperance cause. 

Appointed delegate to the National Convention of the 
Free-soil party, held at Pittsburg, Penn., in 1852, he was 
elevated to the chair of that body, when he made an 
eloquent address : he was also made chairman of the 
National Free-soil Committee, in which capacity he 
served with fidelity and acceptance. During this year 
he was supported by the Free-soil men of the Eighth Dis- 
trict for a seat in Congress, but failed of an election by less 
than a hundred votes, although there was a heavy majority 
against his party in that district. He was also urged by 
his political associates and by many Democrats to become 
candidate for the gubernatorial chair ; but, in a public 
letter, he peremptorily declined a nomination. 



98 LITE OF HENEY WILSOK. 

Again lie was a member (1852), and was again elected 
president of the Massachusetts Senate by sixteen out of 
twenty-seven votes. During the session, he assisted vigor- 
ously in obtaining the act for a constitutional convention, 
and for a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors ; 
on behalf of which he made a strong speech in February, 
wherein he said, " Heretofore we have tx'ied to regulate 
the sale of ardent spirits. This bill will stop it." 

He was appointed chairman of the legislative com- 
mittee to welcome President Fillmore to Massachusetts, 
and also to extend a reception to Gov. Louis Kossuth, 
the distinguished Hungarian exile to our State. In 
company with twenty-one senators, he met this noble 
adv^ocate of freedom and humanity on his arrival at 
Springfield, April 26, 1852, and, in the presence of a vast 
multitude of people who had gathered to greet the heroic 
opponent of Austrian despotism, gave him a cordial wel- 
come to the hospitalities of Massachusetts in the following 
eloquent and appropriate words : — 

" Gov. Kossuth, in the name and in behalf of the 
government, I bid you welcome to the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, to the hospitalities of the authorities, and 
the sincere and enthusiastic greetings of t!ie people. I 
welcome you, sir, to a Commonwealth which recognizes 
the unity of mankind, the brotherhood of men and of 
nations, — a Commonwealth where the equality of all men 
before the law is fully established ; where 'personal fiee- 
dom is secured in its completest individuality, and common 
consent recognized as the only just origin of iundamental 
laws.' 

" Welcome, sir, to the soil consecrated to the tears and 
prayers of the Pilgrim exiles, and by the first blood of the 
lievolution. Welcome to the halls of council, where Otis 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO GOV. KOSSUTH. 99 

and Hancock and the Adamses breathed into the nation 
the breath of life ; to the field of battle, where Warren and 
his comrades fell fighting for freedom and the rights of 
man, and where the peerless chieftain to whose tomb you 
have just made a pilgrimage first marshalled the armies of 
the republic. Welcome to the native State of Franklin, 
who pleaded the cause of his country to willing and unwilling 
ears in the Old World as you are pleading the cause of your 
country in the New World. Welcome to the acquaintance 
of a people who cherish your cause in their hearts, and 
who pronounce your name with affection and admiration. 
Welcome to their free institutions, — institutions of religion 
and of learning and of charity, reared by the free choice 
of the people for the culture of all and the relief of all, — 
institutions which are the fruits of freedom such as you 
strove to give to your fatherland, for which crime you are 
this day a homeless and persecuted exile. 

" To-day you are the guest of Massachusetts. Sir, the 
people of Massachusetts are not man-worshippers. They 
will pay you no unmeaning compliments, no empty honors. 
But they know your history by heart. Your early conse- 
cration to freedom ; your years of persecution and im- 
prisonment ; your sublime devotion to the nationality and 
elevation of your country ; the matchless eloquence and 
untiring industry with which at home you combated the 
Austrian despotism, with which in exile you have pleaded 
the cause of Hungarian liberty, the cause of universal dem- 
ocratic freedom and of national right ; the lofty steadiness 
of your purpose, and the stainless purity of your life, — 
these have won their sympathy, and command their pro- 
foundest admiration. Descendants of Pilgrim exiles, we 
greet you warmly. Sons of Revolutionary patriots, we hail 
you as the exiled leader of a noble struggle for ancient 



100 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

rights and national independence. We receive you as the 
representative of'PIungary, as the champion of republican- 
ism in Europe. We welcome you as we would welcome 
your gallant peo^^le into the sisterhood of republics, into 
the family of nations. 

" The people of this Commonwealth, sir, watched the 
noble struggle of your nation with admiration and with 
hope. They felt that the armies which you organized and 
sent into the field were fighting the battles, not of Hungary 
alone, but of the world, because they were fought for 
freedom and for progress. Your victories were our vic- 
tories ; and when, by the treachery of Gorgey, Hungary 
fell before the armed intervention of Russia, they felt, and 
still feel, that the czar had not only violated the rights of 
Hungary, but had outraged the law of nations and the 
sentiment of the civilized world. On this subject the mes- 
sage of his Excellency the governor, and the resolutions 
pending before the legislature, utter the sentiments of the 
people of Massachusetts. 

" The wave of re-action has swept over Europe. The 
high hopes excited by the revolutions of 1848 are buried in 
the graves and in the dungeons of the mai'tyrs of freedom ; 
are quenched in the blood of the subjugated people. The 
iron heel of absolutism presses the beating hearts of the 
nations. The voice of freedom is heard only in the threat- 
ening murmurs of the down-trodden masses, or in the sad 
accents of their exiled leaders. But all is not lost. God 
lives and reigns. The purest, the noblest, the most power- 
ful impulses of the great heart of humanity are for right 
and liberty. Glorious actions and noble aims are never 
wholly lost. The 

* Seed of generous sacrifice, 
Though seeming on the desert cast, 
Shall rise with flower and fruii at last.' 



ADDEESS OF WELCOIVIE TO GOV. KOSSUTH. 101 

" When you quit the shores of the republic you will 
carry with you the prayers of Massachusetts that the days 
of your exile may be few, and the subjugation of your 
people brief; that your country may speedily assume her 
proper high position among the nations ; and that you may 
give to her counsels in the future, as you have given in the 
past, the weight of your character and the power of your 
intellect to guide her onward in the career of progress and 
of democratic freedom. 

" Again, sir, in the name of the government and people 
of Massachusetts, I welcome you to our hearts and to our 
homes. . I welcome you to such a reception as it becomes 
a free and democratic people to give to the most illustrious 
living leader and champion of freedom and democracy." * 

Mr. Wilson afterwards in an appropriate manner wel- 
comed the illustrious exile to the Senate, and was highly 
gratified with the brief interviews which he held with 
him ; for their opinions on the great questions of civil lib- 
erty were in harmony, and their experience in endeavoring 
to maintain it brought them into immediate personal 
sympathy. Mr. Wilson presided over the deliberations of 
the Senate with dignity, impartiality, and acceptance. But 
once only was a question raised on his decision during the 
time he occupied the chair, and then but five voted against 
him. At the close of his State senatorial career in the 
spring of 1852, he took leave of his associates in an appro- 



* In a letter of Mr. Sumner to Mr. Wilson, dated Senate-chamber, April 29, 
1852, he says, " Seward has just come to my desk ; and his first words were. ' What 
a maguiflcent speech Wilson made to Kossuth I I have read nothing for months 
which took such hold of me.' 1 cannot resist telling you of this, and addino; the 
expression of my sincere delight in what you said. It was eloquent, wise, and 
apt. I am glad of this grand reception. Massachusetts does honor to herself in 
thus honoring a representative of freedom." 
9* 



102 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

priate address ; and a gold watch was presented to liim by 
liis friends in token of his faithfulness and courtesy as the 
presiding officer. 

It bears this inscription : — 

" Hon. Henry Wilson, from Members of the Massachusetts 

Senate, 1852." 

During tlie sessions of the legislature in 1850-1-2, he 
was absent from his seat but one day, and that was to at- 
tend the funeral of a friend. As was said of Mr. Adams, 
one might as soon expect to see a pillar of the Capitol ab- 
sent from its place as Mr. Wilson from his seat. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MR. WILSON AT HOME. THE STATE CONSTITUTIONAL 

CONVENTION. — HIS PART IN IT. SPEECHES. 

RESULT OF THE CONVENTION. 

A Friend of his Pastor. — Hard Study. — Temperance. — Books and Authors. — 
The Source of Civil Liberty.— No " Back-Blows." — Cheerful Spirit.— 
Home. — Gift to his Minister. — Revision of the State Constitution. — Elected 
by Natick and Berlin.— Punctuality. — His Course. — How he looked at a 
Legal Question. — Chaii-man pro tern. — Speech in Favor of Colored Troops. 
— On the Death of Mr. Gourgas of Concord. — On the Course of Harvard 
College in Respect to Prof. Bowen. — Address to his Constituents. — Reason 
for Defeat of the Amendments. — Cost and Influence of the Convention. 

IN May, 1852, the Rev. Elias Nason was settled as pas- 
tor of the Congregational cliurch at Natick, where he 
continued until the autumn of 1858. During his pastorate 
at Natick he found in Mr. Wilson a firm and cordial friend, 
ever prompt and liberal in the support of the institutions 
of religion and of benevolence, and ever aiding with heart 
and hand in the promotion of the welfare of the community. 
On the sabbath he was usually in his seat in church, and 
an attentive listener. He was always frank and open m 
the expression of his opinions upon every subject, whether 
political, social, ot religious; and he loved to have other 
people speak with the same freedom. Plain and unaffected 
in his manner and his dress, he associated freely with the 
working-people ; and the very humblest found a welcome 



104 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

at his open door. In the social circle the sight of his fresh 
and smiling countenance was indeed a benediction. 

He pursued his studies with untiring energy, sometimes 
reading or writing — as he had once labored in the shop — 
fifteen or sixteen hours in succession. When he com- 
menced upon a theme, he loved to finish his investigations 
ere he left it ; and this often carried his labors far into the 
night : yet still he came forth as bright the following 
day as if he had spent the night in repose. His 
physical as well as mental system always seemed to be in 
splendid working-order. By looking at his clear com- 
plexion and his vigorous frame, one had an argument for 
temperance more eloquent than any orator could present. 
In his reading he was rapid and select. He chose the best, 
— of foreign writers, Macaulay, Hallam, Carlyle, De 
Tocqueville ; of American, Sparks, Bancroft, Prescott, 
Everett. History was his favorite reading ; yet now and 
then he spent an hour with Emerson's " Essays," Haw- 
thorne's " Scarlet Letter," " Uncle Tom's Cabin," " Jane 
Eyre," and " David Copperfield." 

In his interviews with his pastor he often expressed his 
profound sympathy for the slave and for the working-peo- 
ple, and said that his brightest hope was that he might do 
something in his life towards breaking the fetters of the 
bondman. Constitutional and civil liberty, he frequently 
asserted, came from the principles of the New Testament : 
by those principles every human being ought to be a free- 
man, and on those principles aggression against the slave- 
holding system must be made. His forecast as to the turn 
of the impending contest seems surprising; and, on being 
asked in 1867 how he came to be so " good for guessing," 
he replied, "By looking, not at one point only, but over 
the whole field of action." 



STATE COKSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 105 

Though not then a communicant of the church, lie held 
the church in high regard ; complaining only now and 
then that the clergy moved too tardily in matters of re- 
form. 

" Men misunderstand my motives, and malign my char- 
acter," he often said ; " but I have no time nor wish to strike 
back-blows. I desire to advance upon the line of right 
and duty, and to make every one as happy as I can along 
the way." 

This course of action gave him a cheerful spirit, and 
made others cheerful in his presence. His home, enlivened 
by the smile of an amiable wife and spi'ightly boy, was 
happy ; and surrounded by affectionate friends and neigh- 
bors, who well knew his worth, and were proud of his ad- 
vancement, he was considered as one of the most useful 
and most enviable men in that community. 

When his pastor left Natick, Mr. Wilson, with a tear 
in his eye, came up to him, and said, " I am a poor man ; 
but take this in remembrance, and I wish it were a hun- 
dred times as much." 

On the fourth day of May, 1853, the convention for 
the revision and amendment of the Constitution of the 
State assembled in the State House, Boston. This in- 
strument, framed in 1780, was revised in 1820 ; and 
through successive changes in legislation, and the progress 
of liberal ideas among the people, evidently needed re- 
examination, and, in respect to some of its articles, improve- 
ment. The act of the legislature for holding this con- 
vention was obtained by a hard struggle on the part of 
the progressive members ; and, to form it, some of the 
ablest legislators in the State — as Rufus Choate, George 
S. Boutwell, Benjamin F. Butler, George S. Hillard, N. P. 
Banks, and Benjamin F. Hallett — were elected. Mr. 



106 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Wilson was chosen by the town of Natick, and also by the 
town of Berhn. " On Monday last," he pleasantly said 
in the convention, " I visited the people of that town for 
the first time in my life (perhaps, if they had known me 
better, they would not have elected me) ; and I told the 
people that I would serve them to the best of my ability, 
if they desired it ; but, under the circumstances, I should 
be under great obligations to them if they would allow 
me to resign as delegate from their town : and I obtained 
their unanimous vote to that effect." He was appointed 
chairman of the committee for the best mode of proceed- 
ing in the business of the convention, and also chairman 
of the committee on that part of the Constitution relating 
to the Senate. He set himself at work in this body with 
his usual zeal and industry : he took a leading part in its 
debates, and made many able and effective speeches. 
During the whole session, running through ninety days, 
he was not absent from his seat more than thirty minutes ; 
and every paper, every motion, every speech, received the 
attention of his observant eye or ear. True to the sen- 
timents he had so frequently expressed, his voice was 
always heard in the defence of equal rights, of the cause 
of human freedom, and of the working-people. He met 
the conservative element in the convention courteously, 
but fearlessly ; and by standing firmly to his point, and 
supporting himself by quick appeals to the principles of 
equity, to prey^nt need or past experience, he often gained 
the victory. 

On being asked one day why he ventured, ignorant as 
he was of law, to meet on certain legal questions gentle- 
men eminent for their knowledge of the law, his charac- 
teristic answer was, " Such men mystify things by their 
abstractions and their technicalities ; whereas by using 



STATE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION. 107 

common sense, and looking at things fairly, fearlessly in 
the face, we generally come out right." 

During the illness of Mr. Banks, the speaker of tlie 
convention, he was appointed to the chair, and presided 
ably over the deliberations. Among his speeches in this 
body, that in favor of election by the majority instead of 
the plurality vote, that against an elective judiciary, that 
against the limitation of the State credit, as also that in 
opposition to the tax qualification of the voter, mav be 
cited as evincing marked ability. In regard to the admis- 
sion of colored persons into the military service of the 
State, he nobly said, " The first victim of the Boston 
massacre, on the 5th of March, 1770, which made the 
fires of resistance burn more intensely, was a colored man. 
Hundreds of colored men entered the ranks, and fought 
bravely on all the fields of the Revolution. Gray don of 
Pennsylvania, in his Memoirs, informs us that many of the 
Southern officers disliked the New-England regiments 
because so many colored men were in their ranks. At 
Red Bank they received the commendation of their com- 
mander for their gallant conduct. A colored battalion was 
organized for the defence of New Orleans, and Gen. Jack- 
son publicly thanked them for their courage and con- 
duct. When the country has required their blood in days 
of trial and conflict, they have given it freely, and we have 
accepted it ; but in times of peace, when their blood is not 
needed, we spurn and trample them under foot. I have 
no part in this great wrong to a race. Whenever and 
wherever we have the power to do it, I would give to all 
men of every clime and race, of every faith and creed, 
freedom and equality before the law. My voice and my 
vote shall ever be given for the equality of all the children 
of men before the laws of the Commonwealth of Massa- 
chusetts and the United States," 



108 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

His remarks on the death of his friend Francis R. Gour- 
gas, which occurred on the twelfth day of July, are beau- 
tiful as they are just : " The death of a member of this con- 
vention," said he, " could not but be received with mournful 
sadness by us all. But, sir, he who has fallen was a friend 
of many years. In 1842, eleven years af^o, it was my 
privilege to meet him upon the floor of this House. Then 
I formed a personal acquaintance with liim, — an acquaint- 
ance which ripened into a personal friendship which has 
been continued from that day to this. I have ever found 

him a man 

' Of soul sincere, 
In action faithful, and in honor clear.' 

" During the last five years, it has been my peculiar for- 
tune to meet him on many occasions connected with public 
aflfairs ; and, sir, I can truly say, that, among all my ac- 
quaintances and friends, I know of no one among the liv- 
ing who excelled him in ripe and sound judgment, in 
discretion and prudence. He was a man of inflexible 
purpose, of integrity undoubted. He entertained his own 
opinions with the tenacity of sincere conviction ; and at the 
same time, in carrying out those opinions, he always 
exercised the greatest prudence, discretion, and wisdom. 
It was his fortune, years ago, to enter upon the duties of 
editor of a leading political journal in the town of Con- 
cord. In the severe political conflicts of those times, he 
doubtless had many strong opponents ; but in his own 
town of Concord he enjoyed the confidence, the respect, 
and the affection of men of all parties. His townsmen 
and neighbors loved and honored him ; for they knew his 
worth. 

" Having a family of three children, an accomplished, 
intelligent, and faithful wife, he has, during the past few 



SPEECHES. 109 

years, devoted himself, when not eno;aged in the duties of 
public life, to the welfare of his family, and to the cultiva- 
tion of his beautiful garden. His library, for which he had 
recently fitted up an appropriate room, reflected the refine- 
ment of his taste and the cultivation of his mind. He 
was surrounded by every thing to make life agreeable and 
desii-able. But, sir, he has fallen, — fallen in the vigor and 
maturity of his manhood, — mourned by all his neighbors, 
and deeply regretted by all his associates and friends in 
political life. In him I have lost an associate and friend 
whose name and memory I shall ever cherish with affec- 
tion until my heart shall cease to beat. 

" A comrade has fallen. We may pause for a moment, 
and drop a tear of affection to his memory ; but duty com- 
pels us to close up the ranks, and hurry on in the perform- 
ance of life's labors." 

His speech on the course pursued by the friends of 
Harvard College in respect to Prof. Francis Bowen, 
who had been set aside from his professorship, as Mr. 
Wilson stated, for " misquoting, misstating, and garbling 
historical authorities," is marked with manly force. 

" I do not, sir, mean to charge it " [the restoration of 
Mr. Bowen], "directly or indirectly, to the' corporators 
of that institution. I charge it upon a certain class of indi- 
viduals, who seem to think that they own the institution, 
president, corporators, overseers, and all, — a class of indi- 
viduals who assume it to be their mission to keep Harvard 
College from the influences of the outside barbarians. I 
would not, if I could, take Harvard College from one sect 
of religionists, and place it under the control of another 
sect. I would not take it from the control of one political 
party, and place it under the control of another political 
party. I would introduce into its government men of all 



110 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

religious sects and of all political parties ; men of genius 
and knowledge ; men devoted to the cause of sound learn- 
ing and literature ; men of liberal ideas ; men who would 
bring that institution, founded by our fathers in their days 
of weakness, abreast of the px'ogressive march of the age, 
and within the circle of popular sympathy. 

" Mr. President, in 1850, Francis Bowen, editor of 
' The North-American Review,' was nominated professor 
ot history by the corporators of Harvard College. On the 
sixth day of February, 1851, his nomination came up for 
confirmation before the board of overseers in the Senate- 
chamber. A majority of the board of overseers of that 
year believed that he entertained sentiments and opinions 
which unfitted him to be a teacher of history in that uni- 
versity, or anywhere else in America; and he was reject- 
ed, ignominiously rejected, — rejected for sentiments and 
opinions that disqualified him to be the teacher of American 
youth ; and rejected, also, for the historical ignorance he 
had shown ; for the perversions, misquotations, and blunders 
he had made in defending his obnoxious sentiments and 
opinions. 

"Sir, I ask the gentleman from Boston (Mr. Lothrop) 
if the nomiliation of Francis Bowen to the professorship 
of history by the corporation of Harvard College, in 1850, 
■was an evidence of the desire of the men who control that 
institution to keep it along with the wants of the people 
and the spirit of the age. Are such sentiments and opin- 
ions as Bowen has expressed for years through ' The North- 
American Review ' such sentiments and opinions as fit him 
to teach the young men of Massachusetts and of the 
country? Are such historical mistakes, blunders, and 
perversions, as he has exhibited in his Hungarian con- 
troversy, evidences of qualifications to teach the young 



SPEECHES. Ill 

men of Harvard ? Is such dishonesty as he has shown in 
garbling historical authorities an evidence of fitness for 
the chair of the professorship of history in the oldest 
university of the country ? Is such a temper as he has 
manifested in the controversies growing out of his historical 
discussions an evidence of his fitness, of his impartiality? 
His sentiments, opinions, historical ignorance, mistakes,' 
perversions, blunders, plagiarisms, and garbling of authori- 
ties, were not unknown to the corporators when his name, 
in January, 1851, was submitted to the board of overseers, 
Wiien, on the 6th of February, his nomination came up 
for confirmation, they were there, not to withdraw the 
nomination in obedience to the almost united voice of the 
American press and the American people, who loathed and 
abhorred his sentiments ; but they, and the peculiar 
friends of the college, were there to sustain the man whom 
the voice of the people had pronounced unfit to be the 
teacher of American youth. And, sir, when the majority 
of the board of overseers had rejected their nomination, 
that board of corporators, sustained by the self-constituted 
friends of the college, seized the first accidental opportunity 
which turned up to place that man in the chair of the pro- 
fessorship of moral philosophy. 

*' These men knew Bowen's sentiments ; they knew he 
had been proved ignorant of the subjects he professed to 
understand ; they knew he had been convicted of dishon- 
esty in garbling, perverting, and misquoting historical 
authorities ; they knew that the public, with a voice 
approaching unanimity, demanded his rejection : yet they 
pressed his nomination ; and, when that nomination was 
rejected, they seized the first opportunity to obtain a snap- 
judgment lor him, and placed him in a professor's chair. 
Does the member from Boston (Mr. Lothrop) think this 



112 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

an evidence of liberality, of a desire to keep along with 
popular opinion ? 

'- Mr. President, the men who have thus, in defiance 
of the popular voice, sustained Francis Bowen, cannot 
plead ignorance of his sentiments and opinions. For sev- 
eral years he has edited ' The North-American Review,' — 
a journal which claims to be the leading literary organ of 
the country, but which, in comparison with the English 
reviews, in ability, learning, and scholarship, is like a 
Cape-Cod fishing-smack compared to a line-of-battle ship. 
Through the columns of this journal, for years, he has 
avowed sentiments and opinions which show that what- 
ever passes through his mind is perverted ; that it is 
impossible for him to give a truthful and philosophic view 
of the events of history in the Old World or in the New, 
— of the events of the past, or of the events of the 
present day. Narrow, bigoted, intolerant, he, and the class 
of which he is the head, have converted ' The North- 
American Review,' — once graced by the genius and learn- 
ing of Edward Everett, and the ripe scholarship and 
comprehensive views of Alexander H. Everett; a journal 
once presided over by that liberal and true-hearted scholar, 
John G. Palfrey ; by Jared Sjjarks, who has done more for 
American history than any other man in the country ; and 
by other eminent men, who made ' Tlie Review ' worthy 
of the country and of its rising literature, — he, and the 
class of which he is the head, have converted that Review 
into a narrow, intolerant, bigoted organ of that conservatism 
which shrinks from every thing progressive at home or 
abroad. Could the spirit of Wilham Gifibrd — who battled 
with such ferocious vigor and ability through ' The London 
Quarterly Review ' against the spirit of progress, against 
the rights of the many, and for the exclusive privileges of 



SPEECHES. 



113 



the few — come Kack to eartli, he would be delighted with 
its tone of fanatical conservatism, if he did not feel utter 
contempt for its want of power, vigor, learning, and ability. 
Through the columns of that journal, Francis Bowen has 
poured out his slanders and libels upon the great leaders 
of European republicanism. Men illustrious for genius, 
ability, learning, eloquence, and self-sacrificing patriotism ; 
men who have perilled all for the cause of republicanism ; 
men who have been driven into exile for their devotion to 
popular rights, — are sneered at, libelled, and slandered by 
this professor of history, this teacher of moral philosophy, 
through the pages of his journal. 

" When the re-action of 1850 overran Europe ; when 
the high hopes excited by the popular revolutions of 1848 
were burled in the graves and dungeons of the martyrs 
of freedom, quenched in the blood of the people ; when 
the voice of freedom was heard only in the murmurs of 
the down-trodden masses, or in the sad accents of their 
exiled leaders; when Hungary went down before the 
armed intervention of Russia ; when the hopes of Italy 
fell before the soldiers of Louis Napoleon ; when the hopes 
of the friends of republicanism in France, Italy, Ger- 
many, Hungary, and on all the continent, had failed ; when 
the prisons were crowded with patriots ; when banish- 
ment was the sad fate of some of the noblest men of the 
age ; when Kossuth was languishing in his Turkish exile, — 
Francis Bowen placed ' The North-American Review ' on 
the side of the oppressor, and falsified and garbled even 
the oppressor's historical authorities, in order to blast the 
names of the champions of freedom. When Kossuth was 
in a Turkish prison, Francis Bowen sneeringly called him 
* a renegade,' ' a flinatic and ultraist,' ' a demagogue and 
radical of the lowest stamp.' Such were the epithets 

10* 



114 LITE OF HENBY WILSON. 

applied to one whom so many now here have welcomed 
to tins Commonwealth, where he won all hearts by his 
noble qualities of mind and character. Mazzini, Gari- 
baldi, and the Italian patriots, are denounced as ' conspi- 
rators ' and ' brif^ands.' And, sir, this man, this libeller 
of European republicanism, this narrow, bigoted advocate 
of a conservatism that shrinks from all chancre, is the man 
selected by the corporators of Harvard College to teach 
the young men of that university history and moral 
philosophy ! " 

After the close of the convention Mr. Wilson published 
an address to his constituents, in which he explains with 
remarkable clearness the nature, and recommends the 
adoption, of the proposed amendments. Tiie State, how- 
ever, refused to sanction them by its vote ; and the reason 
for it appears in the concluding part of his remarks : — 

*' Ardent friends of constitutional reform may have felt 
a degree of disappointment at the action of the conven- 
tion upon some questions deemed by them of the first 
importance. These friends of reform should remember 
that Massachusetts is an old Commonwealth ; that she has 
a history, a glorious past, full of recollections and memo- 
ries. , They should remember that her people cherish with 
affectionate regard the works and memories of their 
glorious ancestry : they will not touch with irreverent 
hand the works achieved by their futhei's. They siiould 
remember that the people of Massachusetts instinctively 
shrink from all untried experiments. They should also 
remember that the first proposition for a convention to 
revise the Constitution was lost in 1851, and that in 1852 
it was carried by immense efforts. Recalling to mind 
these facts, they cannot fail to realize the profound wisdom 



RESULT OF THE CONVENTION. 115 

of that policy by wliich the convention was guided, — a 
pohcy which refused to peril wise and beneficent measures 
of reform by the adoption of untried and hazardous ex- 
periments, or radical changes which the people were not 
prepared to sustain. The men of the majority of the 
convention, the men whose untiring efforts had carried 
the convention before the people against powerful combi- 
nations and great interests, the men whose efforts had 
secured more than a hundred majority of reformers in 
the convention, clearly saw that the hope, the last and 
only hope, of the leaders of the opposition, who had denied 
the constitutionality of the act caUing tlie convention, who 
had voted against it two years in the legislature, opposed 
it before the people, and demanded its repeal by the legisla- 
ture of 1853, depended solely upon the adoption of untried 
experiments and radical changes. When the chiefs of the 
opposition saw that the men Avho had proposed and car- 
ried the convention, and were a controlling majority in it, 
were masters of their work, they showed unmistakable 
signs that the last hope to which they clung had forever 
vanished, and that the battle was lost. 

" The organs of that conservatism which has, to use 
the words of Rufus Choate, ' a morbid^ unreasoning^ and 
regretful passion for the past ^^ are now making unwonted 
efforts to rally, steady, and marshal the reeling columns 
and oscillating ranks of the opposition." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MR. Wilson's endeavor to unite conflicting parties 

ON the slave-question. THE SENTIMENT OF THE 

STATE UPON AGGRESSIONS OF THE SOUTH. 

ELECTION TO THE UNITED-STATES SENATE. 

SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 



Candidate for Governor. — Defeated. — Not disheartened. — Visit to Washing- 
ton. — His Grand Idea. — Ready to surrender Party for Principle. — Con- 
vention at Worcester, 1854. — Again nominated for Governor, and defeated. 
— State goes into the American Organization. — His Views. — Southern 
Domination. — Antislavery Sentiment increasing. — Sumner. — Mr. Wil- 
son nominated United-States Senator. — His Firmness. — His Election.— 
United-States Senate-Chamber. —His Fitness for the Place. — His Personal 
Appearance. — His First Speech. — Letter from Mr. Ashmun. — Extract 
from Mr. Parker's Sermon, and Letter from the Same. 



ALTHOUGH Mr. Wilson received in September of 
this year (1853) all but three of the six luindred 
votes of the Free Democratic Convention as their candi- 
date for governor, he failed of an election. This was 
owing mainly to a letter of Mr. Caleb Cashing, denoun- 
cing, on behalf of the administration, the union of the 
Democrats with the Reform party, and to the animosity 
of the Whigs, arising from the active part Mr. Wilson took 
in support of liberal principles in the Constitutional Con- 
vention. In spite of this combination, however, over 
thirty thousand votes were thrown for him ; and neither 

116 



ENDEAVORS TO UNITE ON SLAVE-QUESTION. 117 

he himself, nor liis supporters, wavered in their purpose or 
their hopes. Defeat was, to them, the signal for renewed 
vigilance and exertion. The Southern Congress -men 
were pressing their proslavery measures with more and 
more audacity ; while the Northern members, Charles 
Sumner and his few compeers excepted, anxious for 
personal power, and intimidated by the constant threat- 
ening of a dissolution of the Union, presented but a feeble 
opposition. It was not the time for the friends of the 
slave, though defeated, to fall back, or to be disheartened. 
" The principles of civil freedom," said Mr. Wilson, 
" spring from the New Testament ; and the word of the 
Lord will stand. Let us, then, go forward." 

In the following year (1854) the attempt to abrogate 
the Missouri Compromise (carried into effect May 31), 
and thus extend the blight of slavery over the vast 
domains of Kansas and Nebraska, threw the country into 
intense excitement. Mr. Wilson went to Washington in 
May, and held a consultation with the opponents of the 
Kansas and Nebraska Bill, then pending, in the hope 
of uniting men opposed to slavery into one solid organ- 
ization against its furtiier extension over the States and 
Territories of the Union. His grand idea was free 
labor for the whole continent of America. For party, 
or for name or men, he had but little care, provided he 
could in any way arrest the encroachments of the slave- 
power, and make advancement towards. the consummation 
of his purpose. His thought was one, — it was earnest and 
sincere, — and that was, "death to human servitude." 
He would not, unless compelled, resort to force, but was 
ready to unite with any organization for the overthrow of 
a system which he deemed indefensible either by the laws 
of God, of nature, or humanity, opposed to civil progress, 



118 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

barbarous and cruel, and a dishonor and disgrace to the 
American name. He was called an agitator : he had no 
time to answer, but moved onward. Finding that the 
Free-soil party had not strength to meet the exigency, he 
avowed, in a convention of this body held in Boston on 
the last day of the month (May), that they were ready to 
abandon every thing but principle, and unite with men of 
any political standard for the sake of union in resisting the 
aggressive policy of the South. They were willing to 
place any men in power who would stand faithful to the 
cause of freedom and of human right. " Tliey were 
ready," he declared, " to go to the rear. If a forlorn hope 
was to be led, they would lead it. They would toil : others 
might take the lead, hold the offices, and win the honors. 
The hour had come to form one great Republican party, 
which should hereafter guide the policy and control the 
destinies of the republic." 

For the purpose of uniting political parties on the slave- 
question, a convention was held in Worcester on the tenth 
day of August, 1854 ; and there, again, Mr. Wilson and 
Ids associates urged with great force and ability the fusion 
of the different organizations into one grand body for the 
effectual resistance of the aggressive policy of the South. 
" The Free-soil party would concede every thing but prin- 
ciple : all they demanded was the acceptance of their doc- 
trines of perpetual hostility to the slave-power." These 
overtures were steadily rejected by the Whig element in 
the convention ; yet, with unabated energy, Mr. Wilson 
continued to press the importance of merging every 
political creed in one. In his desire to combine the 
antislavery elements in the State, he accepted the nomi- 
nation of the Republicans for governor, and was again 
defeated at the election. For entering; into the American 



ENDBAVOES TO UNITE ON SLAVE-QUESTION. 119 

organization tliis year, liis course was criticised by many: 
but the people, finding union under the Whig leadership 
impossible, went into that party ; and he, believing that it 
might be so liberalized and broadened in its principles as 
to advance the cause of freedom, decided (March, 1854) 
to cast in his influence with them. Personally he is, and 
ever was, a friend to the foreignei% and ever bids him 
welcome to the rights and privileges of this free country; 
but then the slave-power was triumphant in the passage of 
tiie repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; and he deemed it 
advisable to array, as far as possible, the powerful Ameri- 
can organization against the proslavery propagandists. In 
his expectations he was not disappointed; for this union 
resulted in the election of several liberal men as represen- 
tatives to Congress, and " of the most radical antislavery 
State legislature ever chosen in America." 

In a letter dated April 20, 1859, he thus presents the 
course of policy which he has undeviatingly pursued ; and 
in it we may discover the reason of his union with the 
American party : — 

" For more than twenty years I have believed the an.ti- 
slavery cause to be the great cause of our age in America, — 
a cause which overshadowed all other issues, state or na- 
tional, foreign or domestic. In my political action I have 
ever endeavored to make it the paramount question, and 
to subordinate all minor issues to this one nrand and com- 
prehensive idea. It seems to me that the friends of a cause 
so vast, so sacred, should ever strive to save it Irom being 
burdened by the pressure of temporary interests and local 
and comparatively immaterial questions. With the issues 
involved in the solution of the slavery question in America, 
with the lights I have to guide my action, I should feel, if 
I put a burden on the antislavery cause by pressing the 



120 LEFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

adoption of measures of minor importance, that I was com- 
mitting a crime against millions of hapless bondmen, and 
•sliould deserve their lasting reproaches and the rebuke of 
all true men who were toiling to dethrone that gigantic 
power whicli perverts the National Government to the in- 
terest of oppression." 

Mr. Wilson, as an acknowledged leader, evinced the 
skill of a practised engineer in so blendnig and combin- 
ing political parties as to form a legislature of an anti- 
slavery character. But it will be remembered that the 
sentiment of the State against the aggressions and the 
insolence of the South had for several years been steadily 
gaining strength. The passage of the Fugitive-slave Act, 
1850, by which the North became a vast slave-hunting 
field ; the trial and rendition of Anthony Burns in 1854 ; 
the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, by which the Mis- 
souri Compromise was virtually repealed ; the border-ruf- 
fianism and the reign of terror in Kansas, in which many 
people from Massachusetts lost their property or their lives, 
— these with other acts and outrages of the slaveholding 
party, whose policy was to select for leaders Northern men 
with Southern principles, awakened more and more the 
indignation of this State. The pulpit began to speak upon 
the theme; the press proclaimed the iniquity; the work- 
man in his workshop talked of the Missourian barbarities in 
Kansas ; and the statesman showed the suicidal policy of 
the South : so that the anti-servile legislature of 1855 was 
but an exponent of the spirit of the State ; and Mr. Wil- 
son, as he himself declared, " instead of controlling cir- 
cumstances, was, by the force of circumstances," led into 
success. 

While the heart of the Commonwealth was throbbing 
under the arrogant assumption of the slavocracy, now 



SENTBIENT OF THE STATE. 121 

triumpliing in tlio reclamation of the fugitive, in the atro- 
cities of the Missourians in Kansas, and the subserviency 
of a Northern president, Mr. Edward Everett, on account 
of failing health, sent in his resignation to the Senate. Mr. 
Sumner was making great efforts to resist Southern influ- 
ence, and dealing gallant blows in defence of freedom. 
Now, who shall be sent to stand by him ? Who shall take 
the place of the accomplished orator, four years of whose 
term were unexpired, and face with an unfaltering front 
the issues on the floor of Congress ? Who has the historical 
knowledge, the legislative skill, the statesmanship, the hon- 
esty, the unconquerable will, the force, and the backbone, 
to meet the exigency? Who can best represent the prin- 
ciples, tiie spirit, and the fire of Massachusetts in the Sen- 
ate-chamber ? The answer of the State was, " Henry 
Wilson." On the first ballot in the caucus he was nomi- 
nated, notwithstanding strenuous opposition, by a majority 
of more than a hundred votes. Pending the election, 
several gentlemen in favor of nationalizing the American 
part}' solicited him to write a letter modifying his avowed 
opinions on the slavery question, that they might, consist- 
ently with their political principles, give him their support. 
They might as easily have moved the granite hills from 
which he came. He assured them that his opinions on the 
slavery question were the matured convictions of his life, 
and that he would not qualify them to win. the highest 
position on earth ; that he had not travelled one mile * nor 
uttered one woid to secure his nomination ; that, if elected, 
he should carry his opinions with him into the Senate ; and, 
if the party with which he acted proved recreant to freedom, 
he would shiver it, if he possessed the power, to atoms. 

* In a letter to Iloti. Gilbert Pillsbury, dated Natick, March 10, 1S55, he says, 
"You also know that I never travelled a single mile to secure a vote, or asked a 
single member of the House or Senate to vote for me." 
11 ■ 



122 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

He was elected by two hundred and thirty-four to a 
hundred and thirty votes in the House, and twenty-one 
to nineteen votes in the Senate ; * and took his seat in the 
Senate of the United States on the tenth day of Febru- 
ary, 1855. It was a time of wild and stormy debate in 
Congress on great questions between the friends and 
foes of slavery. The Southern men were combining with 
a section of the American party of the North, and pre- 
senting an unbroken front against the advocates of free- 
dom. The}'- seemed to menace and to fight, as if the crisis 
and the doom of their inhuman domination had arrived. 
The great "Northern hammer," wielded by the stalwart 
arm of Giddings, Hale, or Sumner, was descending with 
effect; and the cry of "No more slave States" was peal- 
ing through the land. 

The halls of Congress rang with fierce invective, threats 
of violence, and oaths of condign punishment. "To me," 
said Mr. Giddings, " it is a severer trial of human nerve 
than the facing of cannon and bullets on the battle-field." 

Mr. Wilson was now forty-three years old : f he had 
arrived at the full vigor of manhood ; his health was per- 
fect ; his principles were fixed, his plans matured ; his 
heart and hand were ready for the contest ; and, on enter- 
ing that tumultuous assembly, he took position at once, 
and stood firm as a rock for truth and liberty. Though 
he had not the grace or rhetoric of his predecessor, he had 
the knowledge, the tact, the working-power, the dauntless 

* N. F. Bryant of Barre and J. A. Rockwell were the principal opposing candi- 
dates in the House, and E. M. Wright in the Senate. 

t The following description of Mr. Wilson's personal appearance was written at 
the time: "The senator from Massachusetts is about five feet ten inches high; and 
weighs, I should think, about a hundred and sixty-five pounds. He has a small 
hand and foot, and seems built for agility. His complexion is florid, his hair brown, 
and his eye blue. His ample brow indicates ideality and causation; his voice is 
strong and clear. He is, on the whole, decidedly good-looking; and seems fearless 
and good-natured in the performance of his senatorial duties." 



SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 123 

heroism, which come to the front when mighty interests 
are at stake. 

In his first speech in the Senate he announced his deter- 
mination fearlessly to stand with his antislavery friends in 
the defence of the rights of the colored race. It was upon 
the bill of Mr. Toucey of Connecticut, " to protect persons 
executing the Fugitive-slave Act from prosecution by State 
courts." " Now, sir," said Mr. Wilson, " I assure senators 
from the South that we of the free States mean to change 
our policy. I tell you frankly just how we feel, and just 
what we propose to do. We mean to withdraw from these 
halls that class of public men who have betrayed us and 
deceived you, — men who have misrepresented us, and not 
dealt fi-ankly with you ; and we intend to send men into 
these halls who will truly represent us, and deal justly with 
you. We mean, sir, to place in the councils of the nation 
men who, in the words of Jefferson, ' have sworn on the 
altar of God eternal hostility to every kind of oppression 
of the mind and body of man.' Yes, sir, we mean to place 
in the national councils men who cannot be seduced by the 
blandishments, or deterred by the threats, of power, — men 
who will fearlessly maintain our principles. I assure sen- 
ators from the South that the people of the North entertain 
for them and their people no feelings of hostility ; but they 
will no longer consent to be misrepresented by their own 
representatives, nor proscribed for their fidelity to freedom. 
This determination of the people of the North has mani- 
fested itself during the past few months in acts not to be 
misread by the country. The stern rebuke administered 
to faithless Northern representatives, and the annihilation 
of old and powerful political organizations, should teach 
senators that the days of waning power are upon them. 
This action of the people teaches the lesson, which I hope 



124 LIFE OF HENKY WILSON. 

will be lieeded, that political combinations can no longer be 
successfully made to sujipress the sentiments of the people. 
We believe we have the power to abolish slavery in all the 
Territories of the Union ; that, if slavery exists there, it 
exists by the permission and sanction of the Federal Gov- 
ernment, and we are responsible for it. We are in favor 
of its abolition wherever we are morally or legally respon- 
sible for its existence. 

" I believe conscientiously, that if slavery should be 
abolished by the National Government in the District of 
Columbia and in the Territories, the Fugitive-slave Act 
repealed, the Federal Government relieved from all con- 
nection with or responsibility for the existence of slavery, 
these angry debates banished from the halls of Congress, 
and slavery left to the peoj^le of the States, the men of 
the South who are opposed to the existence of that insti- 
tution would get rid of it in their own States at no dis- 
tant day. I believe, that, if slavery is ever peacefully 
abolished in this country, — and I certainly believe it 
will be, — it must be abolished in this way. 

" The senator from Indiana (Mr. Pettit) has made a long 
argument to-night to prove the inferiority of the African 
race. Well, sir, I have no contest with the senator upon 
that question ; but I say to the senator from Indiana, that 
I know men of that race who are quite equal in mental 
power to either the senator from Indiana or myself, — men 
who are scarcely inferior, in that respect, to any senators 
upon this floor. But, sir, suppose the senator from Indiana 
succeeds in establishing the inferiority of that despised 
race: is mental inferiority a valid reason for the perpetual 
oppression of a race? Is the mental, moral, or physical 
inferiority of a man a just cause of oppression in republican 
and Christian America ? Sir, is this democracy ? Is it 



SPEECH IN THE SENATE. 125 

Christianity? Democracy cares for tlie poor, the lowly, 
the iiuiiibie. Democracy demands that the panoply of 
just and equal laws shall shield and protect the weakest of 
the sons of men. Sir, these are strange doctrines to hear 
uttered in the Senate of republican America, whose politi- 
cal institutions are based upon the fundamental idea that 
' all men are created equal.' If the African race is infe- 
rior, this proud race of ours should educate and elevate it, 
and not deny to those who belong to it the rights of our 
common humanity. 

" The senator from Indiana boasts that his State imposes 
a fine upon the wiiite man who gives employment to the 
free black man. I am not surprised at the degradation of 
the colored people of Indiana, who are compelled to live 
under such inhuman laws, and oppressed by the public 
sentiment that enacts and sustains them. I thank God, 
sir, Massachusetts is not dishonored by such laws ! In 
Massachusetts we have about seven thousand colored peo- 
ple. They have the same rights that we have ; they go to 
our free schools ; they enter all the business and professional 
relations of life ; they vote in our elections ; and, in intelli- 
gence and character, are scarcely inferior to the citizens of 
this proud and peerless race whose superiority we have 
heard so vauntingly proclaimed to-night by the senators 
from Tennessee and Indiana." 

Mr. Wilson's uncompromising attitude in the Senate 
drew forth many expressions of admiration, even from his 
political opponents at home. The following frank letter 
from the late Hon. George Ashmun indicates the spirit 
with which many, who then disagreed with him, regarded 
his consistent action: — 
11* 



126 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Springfield, Feb. 28, 1855. 

Dear Sir, — This Avorld has many seeminojly queer 
changes. It seems queer to see you in the United-States 
Senate, and perhaps more queer for me to say to you an 
approving word. But I have a short memory for wrongs 
which are merely personal to myself, and am quite ready 
to do justice in spite of some needless abusive things which 
the newspapers have formerly reported from you. I 
therefore sit down for a moment to say that your letter to 
" The Organ," and some brief speeches in the Senate, have 
given me entire satisfaction. It is not very important for 
me to say it, nor for you to hear it : but, having myself cut 
loose from all party alliances for the present and the 
future, I can afford to do what a party man cannot ; i.e., 
tell the truth of friend or foe. 

Your demonstrations thus far show two things : 1st, 
That, when a man of sense finds himself in a national 
position, he is quite sure to throw off" the slough of pro- 
vincialism ; and, 2d, That, whatever your antecedents may 
have been, you have the courage to take ground which men 
of sense at home will sustain you in. 

I mean to see in you nothing else than a IMassachusetts 
senator, and hope to see in your course nothing else than 
a vindication of Massachusetts honor. You have, by the 
present confusion of all old parties, a clear field, and am- 
ple room to conquer all the prejudices which the low and 
miserable strife of factions at home may have given life 
to ; and you will find but feeble and fickle support in the 
mere appliances of party. You cannot conform to the 
narrow and exacting spirit of a local party ; but you can 
deserve and command the respect and confidence of those 
whose eyes look beyond a village or a provincial horizon. 

It is and has been too much the habit of our people to 



LETTEES FEOM ASHMUN AND PARKER. 127 

abuse their senators and representatives at Washington for 
any nonconformity to every article in their several and 
individual creeds. Your predecessors have been shamefully 
treated in this respect ; and the consequence has been that 
their hands have been weakened, and Massachusetts has 
lost nearly all its ancient influence. 

I hold to a different doctrine, and feel that a liberal confi- 
dence in advance is due alike to ourselves and our servants. 
Therefore, while I should not by ray vote have placed you 
in the Senate, and while I cannot agree to some of your 
heresies, I feel moved to send you this expression of my 
sincere gratification at the ground on which you have placed 
yourself at the outset of your career. 

Very respectfully, 
m. Wilson. ^^«- AsHMUN. 

In a sermon delivered July 1, 1855, the Rev. Theo- 
dore Parker thus, in his plain way, refers to Mr. Wilson's 
advancement and his brave defence of freedom : — 

" When a noble man rises in the State, how much we 
honor him ! when a mean man, how we despise him ! 
Massachusetts, within a few months, has taken a man from 
a shoemaker's bench, and placed him in the Senate, in the 
very chair left vacant by the most scholarly man, who had 
fallen from it, and rolled wallowing in the dust at his feet ; 
and, when the senatorial shoemaker speaks brave words of 
right and justice (and in these times he speaks no other), 
the people, not only of Massachusetts, but of all the North, 
rise up, and say, ' Well done 1 here are our hands for 
you.' " 

The following letter also shows Mr. Parker's estimation 
of his senatorial course : — 



128 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Boston, July 7, 1855. 
My dear Wilson, — I cannot let another clay pass by 
without sendino- you a line — all I have time for — to thank 
you for the noble service you have done for the cause of 
freedom. You stand up most manfully and heroically, and 
do battle for the ri^ht. I do not know how to thank you 
enouo-h. You do nobly at all places, all times. If the rest 
of your senatorial term be like this part, we shall see 
times such as we only wished for, but dared not hope as yet. 
There is a North, a real North, quite visible now. God 
bless you for your services, and keep you ready for more ! 
Heartily yours, 

Theodore Parker. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE AMERICAN PARTY. SPEECHES. — PHILADELPHIA 

CONVENTION, 1855. CONTEST. — SPEECH 

AT SPRINGFIELD. 

Defection of the American Party. — Soutbern Influence. — Wilson's Resolution. 

— Interesting Letter. — Acklress in New York. — Antislavery Cause in Peril. 

— Brattleborough, Vt. — Delegate to American National Council, June, 
1855. — Stand for Freedom. — Protest. — Defiant Speech. — Letter from 
Amasa Walker. — Remarks of "The Tribune." —Activity in forming a 
New Party. — Speech at Springfield. — Twenty-one- Years Amendment.— 
Opposes it, — Friendly to Foreigners. — Letter to Francis Gillette. — Cath- 
olic Spirit. 

THE favorable attitude toward slavery wliicli the 
National American party assumed in the council 
assembled at Cincinnati in November, 1854, led Mr. Wil- 
son to fear that the Southern element might soon obtain 
entire control of it ; and his experience at Wasliington 
during the ensuing spring served to convince him that his 
fear was far from being groundless. 

Indeed, strong efforts were made by leading men 
immediately on his arrival as senator in that city to secure 
his aid and influence in the organization of a great Amer- 
ican party which should ignore the slavery issue, and 
sanction the assumptions of the South. His honest heart 
rebelled against such recreancy to principle ; and he unhes- 
itatingly avowed his determination to maintain the stand 



130 . LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

lie had already made for freedom during his entire political 
career. 

Speaking of this Southern influence in a speech before 
the State Council at Springfield, Mass., he said, — 

" On ray arrival at Washington, I saw at a glance that 
the politicians of the South, men who had deserted their 
Northern associates upon the Nebraska issue, were resolved 
to impose upon the American party, by the aid of dough- 
faces from New York and Pennsylvania, as the test of 
nationality, fidelity to the slave-power. Flattering words 
from veteran statesmen were poured into my ears ; flat- 
tering appeals were made to me to aid in the work of 
nationalizing the party whose victories in the South were 
to be as brilliant as they had been in the North. But I 
resolved that upon my soul the sin and shame of silence 
or submission should never rest. I returned home, and 
determined to baffle, if I could, the meditated treason to 
freedom and to the North." 

Again, in a noble reply to a letter from a friend, he 
most frankly speaks of his course at Washington, and 
prophetically announces the character of the coming ses- 
sion of Congress : — 

Natick, July 23, 1855. 

Dear Sir, — On my return from a trip to the West, I 
found your very kind note ; and I need not tell you that I 
read it with grateful emotions. Your approbation — the 
approbation of men like yourself, whose lives are devoted 
to the rights of human nature — cannot but be dear to me. 
I only regret that I have been able to perform so little for 
the advancement of the cause our hearts love and our 
judgments approve ; that I have not ability to do all that 
my heart prompts. I hope, however, my dear sir, to be 
able to do my duty in every position I may be in, if not 



THE AilERICAN PARTY. 131 

with the abihty the occasion demands, at least with an 
honest heart that shrinks not from any danger. 

Sometimes I read over the letter you were so kind as 
to send to me when I first took my seat in the Senate. You 
dealt frankly with me in that letter, and I thank you for it ; 
and I hope to be the better and wiser for it; I shall 
endeavor while in the Senate to act up to my convictions 
of duty, — to do what I feel to be right. If I can so labor 
as to advance the cause of universal and impartial liberty 
in the country, I shall be content, whether my action meets 
the approbation of the politicians or not. I never have 
sacrificed, and I never will sacrifice, that cause to secure 
the interests of any party or body of men oh earth. The 
applause of pohtical friends is grateful to the feelings of 
any man in public life, especially if he is bitterly assailed 
by political enemies ; but the approbation of our own con- 
sciences is far dearer to us. 

Last year, after the attempt was made to repeal the 
prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, the people 
of the North began to move ; and, from March to Novem- 
ber, the friends of freedom won a series of victories. The 
moment the elections were over in the North, I saw that 
an effort was to be made to assist the antlslavery move- 
ment by fhe American movement. When I arrived at 
Washington, I was courted and flattered by the politicians ; 
even told that I might look to any position if I would aid 
in forming a national party. I saw that men who had 
been elected to Congress by the friends of freedom were 
ready to go into such a movement. I was alarmed. I 
saw that one of three things must happen, — that the anti- 
slavery men must ignore their principles to make a na- 
tional party ; or they must fight for the supremacy of their 
principles, and impose them upon the organization, which 



132 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

would drive off tlie Sonthei'n men ; or they must break up 
the party. I came home with the resolution to carry the 
convention if I could ; to have it take a moderate but 
positive antislavery position : if not, I determined that it 
should be broken at the June council, so that the friends 
of freedom might have time to rally the people. Since my 
return in March, I have travelled more than nine thou- 
sand miles, written hundreds of letters, and done all I 
could to bring about what has taken place. But the work 
is hardly begun. Our antislavery friends have a mighty 
conflict on hand for the next sixteen months. It will de- 
mand unwavering resolution, dauntless courage, and cease- 
less labor, joined with kindness, moderation, and patience. 
The next Congress will be the most violent one in our 
history : it will try our firmness. I hope our friends will 
meet the issues bravely ; and, if violence and bloodshed 
come, let us not falter, but do our duty, even if we fall on 
the floors of Congress. At Philadelphia, for eight days, I 
met the armed delegates of the black power without shrink- 
ing ; and I hope to do so at the next session of Congress if 
it is necessary to do so. We must let the South under- 
stand that threats of dissolving the Union, of civil war, and 
personal violence, will not deter us from doing our whole 
duty. Yours truly, 

H. Wilson. 

In an address before a large audience in the Metropoli- 
tan Theatre, New York, delivered on the 8th of May, 
1855, and repeated in many towns and cities in New 
England, he traced the growth of the antislavery senti- 
ment in America for the last twenty years, and warned 
his hearers that any party ignoring this rising power 
would be overthrown by an indignant people. 



SPEECHES. 133 

"He owed it to truth," he said, "to speak wliat lie 
knew, — that the antislavery cause was in extreme peril ; 
that a demand was made upon us of the North to itrnore 
the slavery-question, to keep quiet, and to go into power in 
1856. If there were men in the free States who hoped 
to triumph in 1856 by ignoring the slavery-issues now 
forced upon the nation by the slave propagandists, he 
would say to them that the antislavery men cannot be 
reduced or driven into the organization of a party that 
ignores the question of slavery in Christian and republi- 
can America. Let such men read and ponder the history 
of the republic. Let them contrast antislavery in 1835 
and antislavery in 1855. Those periods are the grand 
epochs in the antislavery movement; and, the contrast 
between them cannot fail to give us some faint conception 
of the mighty changes that twenty years of antislavery 
agitation have wrought in America. Antislavery in 1835 
was in the nadir of its weakness: antislavery in 1855 is 
in the zenith of its power. Then a few unknown, name- 
less men were its apostles and leaders: now the most pro- 
found and accomplished intellects of America are its chiefs 
and champions. Then a few proscribed and humble 
followers rallied around its banner: now it has laid its 
grasp upon the conscience of the people, and hundreds of 
thousands rally under the folds of its flag. Then not a 
single statesman in all America accepted its doctrines or 
defended its measures : now it has a decisive majority in 
the national House of Representatives, and is ra|)idly 
changing the complexion of the American Senate. Then 
every State in the Union was arrayed against it : now it 
controls fifteen sovereign States by more than three hun- 
dred thousand popular majority. Then the public press 
covered it with ridicule and contempt: now the most 



134 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

powerful journals in America are its instruments. Then 
the benevolent, religious, and literary institutions of the 
land repulsed its advances, rebuked its doctrines, and per- 
secuted its advocates : now it shapes, moulds, and fashions 
them at its pleasure, compelling the most powerful benevo- 
lent organizations of the Western World, upon whose mis- 
sion-stations the sun never sets, to execute its decrees, and 
the oldest literary institution in America to cast from its 
bosom a professor who had surrendered a man to the 
slave-hunters. Then the political organizations trampled 
disdainfully upon it : now it looks down with the pride of 
conscious power upon the wrecked political fragments that 
float at its feet. Then it was impotent and powerless : 
now it holds every political organization in the hollow of 
its right hand. Then the public voice sneered at and 
defied it: now it is the master of America, and has only 
to be true to itself to grasp the helm and guide the ship 
of state hereafter in her course. 

" This brief contrast," continued he, " would show the 
men who hoped to win power by ignoring the transcendent 
issue of our age in America how impotent would be the 
efforts of any class of men to withdraw the mighty ques- 
tions involved in the existence and expansion of slavery on 
this continent from the consideration of the people. 

"... Now, gentlemen, I say to you frankl}^, I am the 
last man to object to going into power (laughter), and 
especially to going into power over the present dynasty 
that is fastened upon the country. But I am the last man 
that will consent to go into power by ignoring or sacrifi- 
cing the slavery question. If my voice could be heard by 
the whole country to-night, by the antislavery men of 
the country to-night of all parties, I would say to them, 
Resolve it, write it over your door-posts, engrave it on the 



SPEECHES. 



135 



lids of your Bibles, proclaim it at the rising of the sun 
and the going-down of the same, and in the broad light 
of noon, that any party in America, be that party Whig, 
Democratic, or American, that lifts its finger to arrest the 
antislavery movement, to repress the antislavery senti- 
ment, or proscribe the antislavery men, it surely shall 
begin to die (loud applause) ; it would deserve to die ; it 
will die ; and, by the blessing of God, I shall do what little 
I can to make it die." 

In an address on the " Position and Duty of the Ameri- 
can Party," delivered at Brattleborough, Vt., on the 
16th of the same month, he still points out in stirring 
words the only course by which it can escape destruc- 
tion. 

" He had," he said, " no sympathy with that narrow, 
bigoted, intolerant spirit that would make war upon a race 
of men because they happen to be born in other lands, — a 
dastardly spirit that would repel from our shores the men 
who souo-ht homes here under our free institutions. Such 
a spirit was anti-American, devilish : he loathed it from 
the bottom of his heart. He knew there were men who 
called themselves Americans who would abolish the natu- 
ralization laws altogether, who would forever deny the 
right of suflFrage to men for the fault of being born out of 
America. He had no sympathy with that class of men 
whose opinions were at war with the spirit of American 
institutions and the laws of humanity. Such anti-Ameri- 
can sentiments had brought dishonor upon the American 
movement ; and, unless they received the rebuke of the 
American party, they would defeat the real reforms con- 
templated, and cover the movement with dishonor. 

" He regretted to say that tliere were some members 
of the American party in favor of excluding by constitu- 



136 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tional amendments all adopted citizens from office. He 
deeply deplored the action of the legislature of Massa- 
chusetts in proposing an amendment to the Constitution 
embodying this doctrine. He hoped the gentlemen who 
had given tiieir votes for this proposition — a proposition 
that would not permit Prof. Agassiz, one of the first living 
scientific men of the age, to fill, under State appointment, 
an office even of a scientific character — would see their 
error, and retreat at once from a position which justice, 
reason, and religion condemned. What little influence he 
possessed would be given with a hearty good-will to defeat 
the proposition. He had no sympathy whatever with the 
spirit that would send out of the country the sons and 
daughters of misfortune, who, by the storms of life, were 
thrown upon us for support. Whenever the authorities 
of the Old World sent their poor here to be relieved 
themselves of their support, he would promptly redress 
the imposition ; such an abuse ought to be immediately 
corrected : but when a poor man lands upon our soil, 
and by the misfortunes of life is thrown upon the public 
charity for support, he would as soon send a poor fleeing 
bondman back to the land 

' Where the cant of democracy dwells on the lips 
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips,' 

as to banish such a man from the land he has sought. 
There is a kind of native Americanism far more alien to 
America than are the adopted sons of the Old World it 
would degrade into servile races. True genuine Ameri- 
canism rebukes bigotry, intolerance, and proscription ; 
reforms abuses ; adopts a wise, humane, and Christian 
policy towards all men, — a policy consistent with the idea 
that all men are created equal. 



SPEECHES. 137 

" If tlie American party is to achieve any tliino; for 
gooil, it must adopt a wise and Immune policy consistent 
with our democratic ideas, — a policy which will reform 
existing abuses, and guard against future ones ; which shall 
combine in one harmonious organization moderate and 
patriotic men who love freedom and hate oppression. 

" Upon the grand and overshadowing question of 
American slavery the American party must take its posi- 
tion. If it wishes a speedy death and a dishonored grave, 
let it adopt the policy of neutrality upon that question, or 
the policy of ignoring that question. If that party wishes 
to live, and to impress its policy upon the nation, it must 
repudiate the sectional policy of slavery, and stand boldly 
upon the broad and national basis of freedom. It must ac- 
cept the position that ' freedom is national, and slavery is sec- 
tional.' It must stand upon the national idea embodied in 
the Declaration of Independence, that ' all men are created 
equal, and have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness.' It must accept these words as 
embracing the great central national idea of America, 
fidelity to which is national in New England and in South 
Carolina. It must recognize the doctrine that the Con- 
stitution of the United States was made ' to secure the 
blessing of liberty ; ' that Congress has no right to make 
a slave or allow slavery to exist outside of the slave States ; 
and that the Federal Government must be relieved from 
all connection with and responsibility for slavery. 

" In their own good time the Americans of Massa- 
chusetts liave spoken for themselves. They have placed 
that old Commonwealth face to face to the slave oligarchy 
and its allies. Upon their banner they have written in 
letters of living light the words, ' No exclusion from the 
public schools on account of race or color ; ' ' No slave 



138 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

commissioners on the judicial bench ; ' ' No slave States 
to be carved out of Kansas and Nebraska ; ' ' The repeal 
of the unconstitutional Fugitive-slave Act of 1850 ; ' ' An 
Act to protect Personal Liberty.' The men who have 
inscribed these glowing words upon their banner will go 
into the conflicts of the future like the Zouaves at Inker- 
mann, ' with the light of battle on their faces ; ' antl, if 
defeat comes, they will fall with their ' backs to the field, 
and their feet to the foe.' " 

When Mr. Wilson saw the national American party 
hopelessly committed to slavery, he abandoned it. In 
the American National Council, assembled in Philadelphia 
in June, 1855, he manfully held his ground, and nobly 
repelled the assaults upon freedom and the State he repre- 
sented. " When Massachusetts," said he in reply to an 
attack, "pleads to any arraignment before the nation, she 
will demand that her accusers are competent to draw the 
bill." 

An attempt was made, for sentiments he had expressed, 
to deprive him of a seat in the council ; but the delegation 
from his State stood firmly by him, and he was admitted. In 
the exciting debates of that council, which sat for many days, 
he came to the front as the unterrified champion of the 
friends of freedom, and defiantly repelled the charges made 
against them. To a delegate from Virginia, who, ai)proach- 
ing with a pistol, denounced him as the leader of the 
antislavery party, he replied, that his threats had no terrors 
for freemen ; that he was then and there ready to meet 
argument with argument, scorn with scorn, and, if need 
be, blow with blow ; for God had given him an arm ready 
and able to protect his head. It was time that cham- 
pions of slavery in the South should realize the fact, that 
the past was theirs, the future ours." 



SPEECHES. 139 

Here was tlie fire of the dauntless Mlrabeau in the 
French National Assembly when he said, " Go tell your 
king we are here by the will of the people ; and nothing 
but the point of the bayonet shall expel us." 

His speech on the 12th of June is characterized by 
masculine vigor. In regard to the proslavery platform 
he defiantly declared, " The adoption of this platform 
commits the American party unconditionally to the policy 
of slavezy, to the iron dominion of the black power. I 
tell you, sir, I tell this convention, that we cannot stand 
ujXMi this platform in a single free State in the North. 
The people of the North will repudiate it, spurn it, spit 
upon it. For myself, sir, I here and now tell you to your 
faces, that I will trample with disdain on your platform. 
I will not support it. I will support no man that stands 
upon it. Adopt that platform, and you carry against you 
every thing that is pure and holy, every thing that has 
the elements of permanency in it, the noblest pulsations of 
the human heart, the holiest convictions of the human 
soul, the profoundest ideas of the human intellect, and 
the attributes of Almighty God. Your party will be 
withered and consumed by the blasting breath of the 
people's wrath. There is an old Spanish proverb which 
says that ' the feet of the avenging deities are shod with 
wool.' Softly and silently these avenging deities are ad- 
vancing upon you. You will find that ' the mills of God 
grind slowly ; ' but they grind to powder. 

" When I united with the American organization in 
March, 1854, in its hour of weakness, I told the men with 
whom I acted that my antislavery opinions were the 
matui-ed convictions of years, and that I would not mod- 
ify or qualify my opinions, or suppress my sentiments, for 
any consideration on earth. From that hour to this, in 



140 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

public and in private, I have freely uttered my antislavery 
sentiments, and labored to promote the antislavery cause ; 
and I tell you now that I will continue to do so. You 
shall not proscribe antislavery principles, measures, or men, 
without receiving from me the most determined and unre- 
lentinii; hostility. It is a painful thino; to differ from our 
associates and friends; but, when duty — a stern sense of 
duty — T- demands it, I shall do so. Reject this majority plat- 
form, adopt the proposition to restore freedom to Kansas 
and Nebraska, and to protect the actual settlers from 
violence and outrage, sim[)lify your rules, make an open 
organization, banish all bigotry and intolerance from your 
ranks, place your movement in harmony with the humane, 
progressive spirit of the age, and you may win and retain 
power, and elevate and improve the political character 
of the country ; adopt this majority ])latfbrm, commit 
the American movement to the slave perpetualists and the 
slave propagandists, and you will go down before the burn- 
ing indignation and withering scorn of American free- 
men." These words had the flaming spirit of James Otis 
and of Patrick Henry. They were the death-knell of the 
American party. On the adoption of the platform, Mr. 
A'Vilson and his associates uttered their protest against the 
proceedings of the council, and formally withdrew from the 
American organization. 

One of Mr. Wilson's early political opponents thus ad- 
dresses him on the manly stand he took in the conven- 
tion : — 

N. Brookfield, June 22, 1858. 

Dear Sir, — I have just read your speech at Philadel- 
phia. You bad a splendid opportunity to annihilate the 
Northern dough-faces and hurl defiance at the Southern 
slave propagandists, and you availed yourself of it fully and 



MR. walker's letter. 141 

handsomely. I thank you for what you have done so 
bravely and well. You met the crisis nobly, and have 
placed yourself at the head of the politicar antislavery 
movement : that is a settled matter. I am glad you had 
healtli and strength and courage to do the work which so 
many Northern men have shrunk from in times past. 

You have nothing to do now but to go ahead. Tlie 
North looks to you. A great responsibihty rests on your 
shoulders ; but I have the utmost confidence that you will 
meet it, and can assure you that every true man of all 
parties in the free States will rally around the standard of 
freedom. 

I have no advice to give : you need none. My only 
object is to thank you for what you have done, and assure 
you of my confidence in the future. 

Ever and truly yours, 

A MAS A Walker. 
Hon. Hexry Wilson, U. S. senator, Natick, Mass. 

Referring to Mr. Wilson's bold and independent course, 
" The New- York Tribune " truly said, " The anteced- 
ents of Mr. Wilson naturally made him the particular 
object of hostility to the slave-drivers in the convention ; 
and one of the earliest displays after the body was organ- 
ized was a grossly personal attack upon him by a delegate 
from Virginia. But the assailants had now met with an 
antagonist who was not to be cowed or silenced ; and the 
response they received was of a character to induce them 
not to repeat their experiment. We have the unanimous 
testimony of many Northern members to the signal gal- 
lantry and effect of Mr. Wilson's bearing, and to the bold, 
virile, and telling eloquence of his speeches. While all 
have done so well in bringing about results so gratifying, it 



142 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

may be invidious to particularize ; but a few names among 
the Northern members, who were devoted from the start 
to the work of creating a unity and a strength of North- 
ern backbone, should justly be exposed to the public 
appreciation and honor that they deserve. First stands 
Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, pre-eminent as the leader 
in the whole movement. He was handsomely sustained 
by all his associates ; and the numerous insidious efforts 
of the enemy to separate them from him only attached 
them the more closely to- his side. He has the highest 
honor in this contest, exhibited the greatest political ability, 
and broke down many strong prejudices against him, both 
among Massachusetts men who were witnesses to his con- 
duct, and among the delegates of the other States North 
and South. No man went into that council with more 
elements of distrust and opposition combined against him : 
no one goes out of it with such an enviable fame, or such 
an aggregation to his honor. He is worthy of Massachu- 
setts, and worthy to lead the new movement of the people 
of that State which the result here so fitly inaugurates." 

Returning home from this council, Mr. Wilson spent 
the summer and autumn in strenuous efforts to effect a 
fusion of the parties into one grand organization, which 
mio;ht bear the standard of progress and freedom, and con- 
trol the councils of the nation. He travelled thousands 
of miles, visited thirteen different States, conversed with 
many leading men, and addressed immense audiences in 
towns and cities East and West. 

On the 7th of August he made a strong speech in the 
State Council of the American party, at Springfield, " On 
the Necessity of , the Fusion of Parties," in which he 
urged the members to unite with other organizations in 
forming a great Republican party, with strength to meet 
the important issues of the day. 



SPEECH AT SPRINGFIELD. 143 

"The gathering hosts of Northern freemen of every 
party," said he, " are banding together to resist the 
aggressive policy of the black power. Freedom, patriot- 
ism, and humanity demand the union of the freemen of 
the republic for the sake of liberty now perilled. Reli- 
gion sanctions and blesses it. How and where stands 
Massachusetts ? Shall she range herself in the line, 
front to the black power, with her sister States? or shall 
she maintain the fatal position of isolation ? Here and 
now, we, the chosen representatives of the American 
party of this Commonwealth, are to meet that issue, to 
solve that problem. 

" The American party of Massachusetts, dashing other 
organizations into powerless fragments, had grasped the 
reins of power, placed an unbroken delegation in Con- 
gress pledged to the policy of freedom, ranged this ancient 
Commonwealth front to front with the slave-power, and 
written with the iron pen of history upon her statutes 
declarations of principles, and pledges of acts, hostile to 
the aggressive policy of the slaveholding power. When 
the black power of the imperious South, aided by the 
servile power of the faltering North, imposed upon the 
national American organization its principles, measures, 
and policy, the representatives of the American party of 
this Commonwealth spurned the unhallowed decrees, and 
turned tlieir backs forever upon that prostituted organi- 
zation ; and their action received the approving sanction 
of this State Council by a vote approaching unanimity. 
Tlie American party, as a national organization, is broken, 
and shivered to atoms. By its own act the American 
party of Massachusetts has severed itself from all con- 
nection with that product of Southern domination and 
Northern submission. 



144 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" The American party of Massachusetts has, during its 
brief existence, uttered true words and performed noble 
deeds for freedom. The past, at least, is secure. What- 
ever may have been its errors of omission or commission, 
the slave and the slave's friends will never reproach it. 
Holding as it does the reins of power, it has now a glo- 
rious opportunity to give to the country tlie magnanimous 
example of a great and dominant party in the full pos- 
session of consummated power, freely yielding up that 
power for the holy cause of freedom to the equal posses- 
sion of other parties who are willing to co-operate with it 
upon a common platform. Here and now, we, its repre- 
sentatives, are to show by our acts whether we can rise 
above the demands of partisan policy to the full compre- 
hension of the condition of public affairs, to the full 
realization of the obligations whicli fidelity to freedom 
now imposes npon us. 

" If the representatives of the American party reject 
this proposition for fusion, I shall go home once more 
with a sad heart. But I shall not go home to sulk in 
my tent ; to rail and fret at the folly of men : I shall 
go home, sir, with a resolved spirit and iron will, deter- 
mined to hope on and to struggle on until I see the lovers 
of universal and impartial freedom banded together in 
one organization, moved by one impulse. For seven 
years I have labored to break up old organizations and 
to make new combinations, all tending to the organiza- 
tion of that great party of the future which is to relieve 
the government from the iron dominion of the black 
power. 

" Sir, gentlemen may defeat this proposed fusion here 
to-day ; but they cannot control the action of the people. 
A iusion movement will be made, under the lead of gen- 



THE AMERICAN PARTY. 145 

tlemen of the Whig, Democratic, and Free-soil parties, of 
talents and character. The movement will be in har- 
mony with the people's movements in the North. Sir, 
such a movement will put a majority of the men who 
voted with you last autumn in a false position before the 
country, or drive them from your ranks. I cannot speak 
for others : but I tell you frankly that I cannot be placed 
in a false position ; I cannot, even for one moment, consent 
to stand arrayed against the hosts of freedom now prepar- 
ing for the contest of 1856. I tell you frankly, that, when- 
ever I see a formation in position to strike effective blows 
for freedom, I shall be with it in the conflict ; whenever I 
see an organization in position antagonistic to freedom, 
my arm shall aid in smiting it down." 

On the proposed amendment of the Constitution, re- 
quiring foreigners to reside here twenty-one years before 
being allowed to vote, he said, — 

" Sir, the American movement is not based upon big- 
otry, intolerance, or proscription. If there is any thing 
of bigotry, intolerance, or proscription, in the American 
movement, if there is any disposition to oppress or 
degrade the Briton, the Scot, the Celt, the German, or 
any one of another clime or race, or to deny to them the 
fullest protection of just and equal laws, it is time such 
criminal fanaticism was sternly rebuked by the intelligent 
patriotism of the state and country. I deeply deplore, 
sir, the adoption of the twenty-one-years amendment. 
It will weaken the American movement at home and in 
other States, especially in the West, and tend to defeat 
any modification whatever of the naturalization laws. I 
warn gentlemen who desire the correction of the evils 
growing out of the abuses of the naturalization laws 
against the adoption of extreme opinions. I tell you, 



146 LIFE OF HENTwY WILSON. 

gentlemen of the council, that this intense nativism kills ; 
yes, sir, it kills, and is killing, ns ; and, unless it is 
speedily abandoned, will defeat all the needed reforms 
the movement was inaugurated to secure, and overwhelm 
us all in dishonor. Every attempt, by whomsoever made, 
to interpolate with the American movement any thing in- 
consistent with the theory of our democratic institutions, 
any thing inconsistent with the idea that ' all men are 
created equal,' any thing contrary to the command of 
God's holy Word, that ' the stranger that dwelleth with 
you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou 
shalt love him as thyself,' is doing that which will 
baffle the wise policy which strives to reform existing 
evils and to guard against future abuses." 

"With such strong, liberal, and statesman-like views, 
ever holding the question of slavery paramount, he 
labored to enlighten public sentiment, and prepare it for 
the day of universal freedom. Towards the foreigner he 
entertained fraternal feelings ; and his only aim in going 
into" the American party was to turn its power to the 
extinction of a system which was coming rapidly to under- 
mine the liberties of the Xorthern people. 

" I loathe," said he in a speech at Indianapolis in July, 
1855, " the idea of opposition to foreigners as foreigners ; " 
and in a letter on the two-years amendment, written to 
Mr. Gillette in 1859, he says, — 

" I have ever declared that I would support no measure, 
even to reform these abuses, which would in the slightest 
degrade any man, or class of men ; that I would give to 
every human being equal rights, — the same equality I 
would claim for myself or my own son. 

" No power on earth could force me to vote for any 
proposition which fair-minded and intelligent men felt to 



LETTER FROM MR. -SVILSOX. 147 

be unequal or personally degrading. Never have I sup- 
ported any measure inconsistent with the equal rights of 
man ; but, if I had ever unintentionally made such a mis- 
take, I have nothing of that pride of consistency in regard 
to mere measures which would induce me to continue in 
the wrong because I had been wrong once. Better be 
right in the lights of to-day than be consistent with the 
errors of yesterday." 

The following characteristic letter clearly states his posi- 
tion on tliis question : — 

Natick, Mass., July 29, 1872. 
J. O. Cul\t:r, Esq.. Stale Journal. Madison, Wisconsin. 

My dear Sir, — The mail has just brought me your 
note, and extracts clipped from newspapers, purporting to 
be speeches made by me. In answer to vour queries, I 
have to say, that they, and all thoughts and words of like 
character which have appeared in the papers, are pure in- 
ventions, wicked forgeries, and absolute falsehoods. Never 
have I thought, spoken, or written those words, nor 
any thing resembling those words, nor any thing that 
the most malignant sophistry could torture into those 
words. I could not have done so ; for they are abhor- 
rent to every conviction of my judgment, every throb 
of my heai't, every aspiration of my soul. Born in 
extreme poverty, having endured the hard lot the sons of 
poverty are too often forced to endure, I came to man- 
liood passionatel}' devoted to the creed of human equality. 
All my life I have cherislied as a bright hope, and avowed 
as a living faitii, the doctrine, that all men, without distinc- 
tion of color, race, or nationality, should have complete 
liberty and exact equality, — all the rights I asked for my- 
self. My thoughts, my words, my pen, my votes, have 
been consecrated for more than thirty-six years to human 



148 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

rights. In tlie Constitutional Convention of Massachu- 
setts, in eight years' service in her legislature, in more 
than seventeen years' service in tlie Senate of the United 
States, in thirteen hundred public addresses, in the press, 
m speeches and writings that would fill many columns and 
make thousands of pages, I have iterated and reiterated 
the doctrines of equal rights for all conditions of men. Is 
it not, my dear sir, passing strange, then, that partisanship 
should so blind men to a sense of truth, justice, and fair 
play, that they will forge and print abhorrent sentiments 
insulting to God and man, and charge them upon one 
whose life has been given to the cause of equal rights at 
home, and whose profound sympathies were ever given to 
the friends of liberty of all races and nationalities abroad ? 
y Yours truly, 

Henry Wilson. 



CHAPTER X. 

AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. ASSAULT ON MR. SUMNER. RE- 
PLY TO MR. BUTLER, AND RESULT. — NO SUP- 
PLIES FOR SUBJUGATING KANSAS. 

Troubles in Kansas. — Slave and Free Labor Antagonistic. — Reply to Mr. 
Toucey. — Mr. Douglas. — Assault on Mr. Sumner. — Aided by Mr. Wilson. 

— Scene in the Senate-Chamber. — Challenge of P. S. Brooks. — Reply. — 
How received. — Letter of Mr. Harte. — Reply to Mr. Butler of South Caro- 
lina. — Letter from Whittier. — Labors in the Senate. — Views on Slaveiy. 

— Speech July 9. — Musket-Ball. — Speech against sending Military Sup- 
plies to subjugate Freemen in Kansas. 

THE collisions between the free people and the slave- 
holders in Kansas, consequent on the passage of the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act in May, 1854, were becoming more 
and more violent and sanguinary. On that broad and dis- 
tant field the defenders of slavery were committing the 
most barbarous atrocities upon tlie settlers from the North, 
and substantiating practically the truth, that free and slave 
labor cannot harmoniously co-exist in the same State. 
Antagonist in their nature, the success of one is the de- 
struction of the other. The outrages of the border ruffians, 
who were murdering unoffending men and carrying the 
polls by force for slavery, roused tlie Northern people to 
gi-eat excitement ; and they demanded speedy and decisive 
action on the part of the national executive. Instead of 
extending protection to the injured party, the adminis- 



150 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tration fanned the fire of the aggressors. Mr. Wilson 
now came grandly up to the occasion. 

A message from the president to the Senate, enclosing 
an iniquitous report of the secretary of state on the exist- 
ing state of affairs in Kansas, drew forth from him in the 
Senate, Feb. 18 and 19, 1856, one of the boldest defences 
of the outraged people, one of the sternest rebukes of 
border violence, which had yet been made. " Mr. Presi- 
dent," said he, " the senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Toucey) closes his speech with the assumption that there 
may be those in the country who do not wish the presi- 
dent to preserve order ; and he is pleased to say, that, if 
the executive does so, their ' vocation ' will be gone. 
Let me say to the senator from Connecticut, that the 
'vocation' of those to whom he alludes is not fawning, 
abject servility to power. No, sir : they do not 

* Bend to jjower, and lap its milk.' 

" If the senator from Connecticut alludes to those who 
have opposed the uncalled-for and wanton repeal of the 
Missouri prohibition ; if he allutles to those who condemn 
the policy of the administration in Kansas ; if he intends 
to charge the intelligent, patriotic men who sympathize 
with the wronged and outraged people of Kansas, bravely 
struggling to preserve their firesides and altars, their prop- 
erty and lives, against the armed aggressions of lawless 
invasions from Missouri, with a disposition to violate or 
resist the laws of the country, or to cherish sectional ani- 
mosity and strife, — he makes a charge unsupported by even 
the shadow of truth ; and here and now, to his face, and 
before the Senate and the country, I pronounce the charge 
utterly unfounded. If he intends to insinuate a charge of 
that character against me, I promptly meet it ; and before 
the Senate I brand it as it deserves. 



AFFAIES IN KANSAS. 161 

" The senator from Connecticat, with an air of confident 
assurance, calls for facts. Evidently possessed with the 
vast knowledge embodied in these documents sent here by 
the executive, the senator assumes the air and tone of one 
entitled to speak by authority ; and he invites us to deal in 
facts. Sir, he shall have facts ; for it so happens that the 
friends of those who are struggling in Kansas to protect 
their lives, tlieir property, their all, against unauthorized 
power and lawless violence, know something of the facts 
which have transpired there. All knowledge, sir, of aliairs 
in Kansas, is not in the keeping of the executive and his 
senator from Connecticut. The tree of knowledge, sir, 
was not planted in the executive garden ; and I some- 
times think, it it had been, its forbidden fruit would have 
been more secure than were the fruits of that tree plucked 
by our first parents. 

" The senator from Connecticut commends us to the 
consideration of this correspondence ; and the senator 
from California (Mr. Weller) asks us to print ten thou- 
sand extra copies of it to be scattered broadcast over the 
land. I now say — and I can establish what I say before 
any committee of investigation, so that no man can 
question the declaration — that this correspondence 
utterly and totally misstates and misrepresents the state 
of affairs in Kansas. These documents, sir, are made up 
of telegraphic despatches, of letters, of statements, of 
orders, written by Gov. Shannon and others, on the rumors 
of the hour, in a large territory, at a time when the 
people were deeply agitated by all sorts of reports that flew 
over the land in rapid succession. We are called upon now 
to publish these rumors, — rumors that turned out to be 
exaggerated or false, — rumors recognized and admitted 
to be false by the governor of the Territory in his con- 



152 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

versation and in his treaty with the citizens of Lawrence. 
Yes, sir, the Senate is now called upon to print and send 
over the country, as official documents, these stupendous 
misrepresentations of facts. They will carry a gigantic 
falsehood to the American people. He who reads only 
these documents has no accurate knowledge, no true 
conception, of the actual condition of affairs in Kansas at 
the time covered by them. 

" The year 1854 opened upon a vast territory lying 
in tlie heart of the continent, extending from thirty-six 
degrees thirty minutes on the south to the possessions 
of the British queen on the north ; from the borders of 
Missiouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, on the east, to the sum- 
mits of the Rocky Mountains on the west. Over that 
territory, larger than the empire of Napoleon, when, at 
the head of the grand army, he gazed upon that ' ocean 
of flame ' that wrapped the minarets, turrets, and towers 
of the ancient capital of the czars, the republic, on the 
6th of March, 1820, engraved in letters of living light 
the sacred words, ' Slavery shall be and is forever pro- 
hibited.' Slavery, with hungry gaze, glared upon the 
forest and prairie, hill and mountain, lake and river, of 
that magnificent region it was forever forbidden to enter. 
Fixing its glittering eye upon that paradise, consecrated 
by the nation to freedom and free institutions for all, hal- 
lowed forever to free men and free labor, the slave-power, 
in the person of the late president of the Senate, the soul 
of these border aggressions, demanded that this heritage 
of free labor should be opened to the withering foot- 
steps of the bondman. Sir, with hot haste you grasped 
this domain of freedom, and flung it to the slave propa- 
ganda. Your administration, in answer to the stern 
protest of the free laboring-men of the country, whose 



AFFAIRS IN IsLlNSAS. 153 

heritage it was, mocked them with the delusive promise 
that the actual settlers were to shape, mould, and fashion 
the institutions of Kansas and Nebraska. Two years 
have passed, and your ' squatter sovereignty' is proved a 
delusion and a cheat. Laws more hihuman than the 
code of Draco, forced upon the actual settlers of Kansas 
by arftied invading hosts from Missouri, are now to be 
enforced by United-States dragoons. The Constitution, 
framed by a convention of the people, is spurned from 
the halls of Congress ; the convention that formed it is 
pronounced ' spurious ' by the senator from Connecticut ; 
and the people who ratified it are branded as traitors by 
the administration and its subalterns. 

" By the theory of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Mr. Pres- 
ident, the actual settlers were to decide the transcendent 
question, whether freedom should bless, or slavery curse, 
the virgin soil of those vast Territories lying in the central 
regions of the continent. The sons of the free States, 
of Puritan New England, of the great central States, and 
of the North-west, — men who call no man master, and 
who wish to make no man a slave, — were invited to plant 
upon the soil of Kansas those institutions that have 
blessed, beautified, and adorned the homes of their 
childhood. The sons of the Sout!^ — from regions once 
teeming with the rich fruits of fields now blasted, 
blighted, and withered by the sweat of untutored and 
unrewarded toil — were invited to plant, if they could, 
the institutions that had dishonored labor in their own 
native States upon the unbroken soil of Kansas. Sir, 
the people of the North and tlie people of the South had 
a legal and moral right to go there when they pleased, 
how they pleased, and with whom they pleased ; in com- 
panies, or in single families ; under their own direction, 



154 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

or under the auspices of emigrant-aid societies in the 
North or the South. 

" Sir, tlie honorable senator from Missouri (Mr. 
Geyer), in his remarks the other day upon the resolu- 
tion of inquiry submitted by me, made the extraordinary 
declaration, that the ' disorders ' wliich he admits have 
existed on the borders ' are to be attributed to an extraor- 
dinary organization, called an ' Emigrant-aid Society,' — 
the first attempt in the history of this country to take 
possession of an organized Territory, and exclude from 
it the inhabitants of other portions, of the Union.' I am 
amazed that tlie senator from Missouri should make 
sucli a declaration on the floor of the Senate. When 
and how did the Emigrant-aid Society ' attempt to take 
possession of an organized Territory, and to exclude 
from it the inhabitants of other portions of the Union' ? 
Will the senator tell us when that ' attempt ' was made ? 
Will he tell us where it was made? Will he tell us 
how it was made ? I challenge the senator to give 
us one single fact to sustain the declaration lie has so 
unjustly made against men of stainless purity. The 
senator avows that men from his State ' have passed over 
the borders ; ' but they have done so, he tells us, ' to 
protect the ballot-box from the attempt of armed colo- 
nists to control the elections there.' When and how were 
the ballot-boxes assailed by ' armed colonists ' from the 
North ? I call upon the senator from Missouri, I chal- 
lenge any senator, to furnish one fact, one single authen- 
ticated fact, to sustain this assumption. 

" Sir, the Emigrant-aid Society of New England has 
violated no law, human or divine. Standing here 
before the Senate and the country, I challenge the sen- 
ator from Missouri, or any other senator, to furnish to 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 155 

the Senate one fact, one authenticated fact, to show that 
the Emigrant-aid Society has performed any illegal act, 
any act inconsistent with the obligations of patriotism, 
morality, or religion. The President of the United 
States has arraigned before the country these emigrant- 
aid societies ; the organs of the administration have 
assailed them ; and now the senator from Missouri here, 
on the floor of the Senate, renews the assault. Sir, 
I defy any supporter of the administration, any apolo- 
gist of Atchison, Stringfellow, and their followers, to 
give us one act of the directors of the New-England 
Emigrant-aid Society hostile to law, order, and peace. I 
know most of these gentlemen thus wantonly assailed ; 
and I know them to be law-abiding, order -loving, 
conservative men. I defy the senator from Missouri, 
the senator from Connecticut, or the chief magistrate 
at the other end of the avenue, to show, here or else- 
where, that the Emigrant-aid Society ever violated a law 
of this country, or performed an act which could not 
receive the sanction of the laws of God and man. They 
have sent no paupers or criminals to Kansas : they 
have simply organized a system by which persons wish- 
ing to go to Kansas may go in small companies ; and by 
going together, and starting at a particular time and 
place, may have the cost of their fare reduced about 
thirty-three per cent. This company has built a hotel 
in Kansas ; has sent some saw-mills there ; has aided in 
establishing schools and churches. That is the extent of 
offence, — no more, no less. 

" Mr. President, on the 29th of July, 1854, within 
sixty days after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 
a meeting was called at Weston, Mo., by the ' Platte- 
county Self- defensive Association.' Resolutions were 



156 LIFE OF HENRY Wn.SON". 

adopted, declaring that the association, wlienever called 
upon by any of the citizens of Kansas Territory, will 
hold itself in readiness to assist in removing any and all 
emigrants who go there under the auspices of tlie North- 
ern emigration-aid societies. 

" Before the feet of the first emigrants who went there 
xmder the auspices of the Emigrant-aid Society pressed 
tlie soil of Kansas, this ' Platte-county Self-defensive Asso- 
ciation,' under tlie guidance of B. F. Stringfellow, pro- 
claimed to the world its readiness to cross into Kansas and 
remove actual settlers from their new homes. Under the 
lead of this larwless association other meetings were held 
in Western Missouri, and resolutions adopted in favor of 
carrying slavery into Kansas, and in denunciation of 
emigrants from the free States who should go there under 
the auspices of the emigrant-aid societies. 

" On the 9th of August, more than two months after the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, a few persons went into 
that Territory from the East. They went there under the 
auspices of that society referred to the other day so unjustly 
by the senator from Missouri. Early in the autumn of 
1854 the Missouri guardians of Kansas crossed over into 
the Territory, and, by force of arms, endeavored to drive 
from their homes the few persons who had begun the little 
settlement at Lawrence. But these Platte-county-Associ- 
ation heroes found a little band of about thirty New- 
England men, under the lead of Charles Robinson, — the 
Miles Standish of Kansas, — ready to meet the issue Avith 
powder and ball ; and they retreated to their homes, pre- 
ferring to live to fight another dav. 

" The senator from Connecticut referred with an air of 
triumph to the election which took place on the twenty-ninth 
day of November, 1854. On that day Mr. Whitfield was 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 157 

elected — and trinmpliantly elected — a delegate from that 
Territory. No one ever questioned the fact that he had 
a majority of the legal voters of the Territory on that day; 
but, in addition to tiiat fact, men familiar with the Terri- 
tory declare that he received the votes of more than a 
thousand inhabitants of Missouri who crossed the hue and 
voted on that occasion. 

" I hold in my hand, sir, a paper drawn up and signed by 
Gen. Pomeroy, — a gentleman of intelligence, of personal 
honor, whose veracity no man who knows him can ever 
question. From this memorial, addressed to Congress, I 
quote the following words concerning the election of the 
29th of November, 1854 : — 

" ' The first ballot-box that was opened upon our virgin 
soil was closed to us by overpowering numbers and impend- 
ing force. So bold and reckless were onr invaders, that they 
cared not to conceal their attack. They came upon us, 
not in the guise of voters to steal away our franchise, but 
boldly and openly, to snatch it with a strong hand. They 
came directly from their own homes, and in compact and 
organized bands, with arms in hand, and provisions for the 
expedition, marched to our polls; and, when their work was 
done, returned Avhence they came. It is unnecessary to 
enter into the details: it is enough to say, that in three 
districts, in which by the most irrefragable evidence there 
were not a hundred and fifty voters, — most of whom 
refused to participate in the mockery of the elective 
franchise, — these invaders polled over a thousand votes.' 

" An examination of details will reveal the extent of this 
fraud. In the seventh election district of Kansas, six 
hundred and four votes were cast on the 29th of Novem- 
ber, 1854 : of these Whitfield received five hundred and 
ninety-seven, — all but seven. Three months afterwards 
u 



158 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

the census was taken, and there were only fifty-three 
voters in the seventh district. Who went there to vote ? 
Organized, armed, disciplined men from the State of 
Missouri ; and all the votes but seven in that district 
were given for Mr. Whitfield. Does the senator from 
Missouri call that ' protecting the ballot-box against 
armed colonists ' ? In the eleventh district, on the same 
day, two hundred and thirty-seven votes were given. In 
February following, when the census was taken, there 
were but twenty-four voters in that district, which, three 
months before, had given Whitfield two hundred and 
thirty-seven votes, — all but three of the whole number 
cast ; and, within thirty days after the census was taken, 
three hundred and twenty-eight votes were given in this 
district having only twenty-four voters. Yet the senator 
from Missouri gravely informs the Senate that Missouri- 
ans only crossed over the borders ' to protect the ballot- 
boxes against armed colonists ' sent there under the 
auspices of emigrant-aid societies. That these Missou- 
rians crossed the line and voted on that day for Whitfield, 
no one doubted ; but he had a majority of the voters of 
the Territory, and for that reason his election was 7iot 
contested. That is the answer to the senator from Con- 
necticut, who has built his argument on that fact. 

" The character of this invasion will appear in an ex- 
tract from a speech made by one of these modern heroes 
(Gen. Stringfellow), who, according to the senator 
from Missouri, crosses over into Kansas ' to protect the 
ballot-boxes from the armed colonists ' from the free 
States. This speech was made just before the elec- 
tion of Nov. 29, 1854, to which the senator from 
Connecticut has referred with so much confidence, at St. 
Joseph, Mo. In that speech, Gen. Stringfellow said, — 



AFFAIRS m KANSAS. 159 

" ' I tell you to mark every scoundrel among you that 
is the least tainted witli free-soilism or abolitionism, and 
exterminate him. Neither give nor take quarter from the 
damned rascal. I propose to mark them in this house, 
and on the present occasion, so that you may crush them 
out.' 

" ' Crush them out ' is the language. You will remem- 
ber, sir, that the Attorney-General of the United States 
— a man wlio spent the dew of his youth and the vigor 
of his early manhood in assailing democratic statesmen, 
and who is now giving the mature years of his life to 
undermining and perverting democratic principles — sent 
an edict to Massachusetts, pending the election in 1853, 
that the president ' was up to the occasion,' and intended 
' to crush out the element of abolitionism,' Gen. 
Stringfellow, like the president, is ' up to the occasion.' 
He has caught up the word of the attorney-general. 
He is going to mark the free-soilers, he says, that you 
may ' crush them out,' I think his success, sir, will be 
about equal to the success which followed the efforts of 
the president and Gen. Gushing in ' crushing out the 
element of abolitionism.' The elections of the last two 
years have shown who is the crusher and who is the 
crushed. Gen. Stringfellow continues : — 

" ' To those who have qualms of conscience as to violat- 
ing laws, state or national, the time has come when such 
impositions must be disregarded, as your rights and 
property are in danger ; and I advise you, one and all, to 
enter every election district in Kansas, in defiance of Reeder 
and his vile myrmidons, and vote at the point of the bowie- 
knife and revolver. Neither give nor take quarter, as our 
cause demands it. It is enough that the slaveholding 
interest wills it, from which there is no appeal. What 



160 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

right lias Gov. Reeder to rule Missourians in Kansas ? 
His proclamation and prescribed oath naust be repudiated. 
It is your interest to do so. Mind that slavery is estab- 
lished where it is not prohibited.' 

" ' Qualms of conscience as to violating laws, state or 
national.' No, sir, that will never do ! ' Such impo- 
sitions must be disregarded.' ' Every election district 
in Kansas must be entered by one and all,' and they 
must ' vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver.' 
Is that the way these border gentlemen pass over the line, 
according to the senator from Missouri, ' to protect the 
ballot-boxes against the armed colonists ' ? 

" ' Qualms of conscience about violating laws, state or 
national,' were given up ; and they ' entered into every 
election district in Kansas, in spite of the proclamation 
of Reeder,' and made the election of Whitfield doubly 
sure. The Senate will remember that the senator from 
Missouri assures us that Missourians only crossed the 
borders to ' protect the ballot-boxes against the armed 
colonists' from the East. Sir, I commend to the 
especial consideration of the senator from Missouri the 
advice of Gen. Stringfellow, to give up all ' qualms of 
conscience as to violating laws, state or national,' and to 
' enter every election district in Kansas.' Is that the 
way Missourians ' protect the ballot-boxes over the bor- 
ders ' ? 

" I proceed now with the facts. The census of Kan- 
sas was taken, by the direction of Gov. Reeder, in 
February, 1855 ; and then there were eight thousand five 
hundred inliabitants, and two thousand eight hundred 
and seventy-seven legal voters, in the Territory. At tlie 
ensuing election, — on the 30th of March, 1855, — four 
thousand voters from the State of Missouri passed into 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 161 

that Territory and gave their votes. Lawrence, accord- 
ing to the census, was entitled to less than five hundred 
votes. But, sir, nine hundred and fifty were cast ; 
although nearly one-half the legal voters of Lawrence, if 
we are to believe the testimony of some of their most 
respectable citizens, refused to vote on that day. More 
than eight hundred Missourians, armed to the teeth, led 
by Col. Young, a lawyer of Western Missouri, went to 
Lawrence, the home of the New-England men so often 
assailed and so much misrepresented in the documents 
before us. Col. Young made a speech declaring that 
he would vote, or would shed his blood. He took the 
precaution, however, to swear in his vote. He had more 
regard for his life than he had for his conscience. 

" ' In the Lawrence district, speeches were made to them 
by leading residents of Missouri, in which it was said that 
they would carry their purpose, if need be, at the point of 
the bayonet and bowie-knife ; and one voter was fired 
at as he was driven from the election-ground. Finding 
they had a greater force than was necessary for that j)oll, 
some two hundred men were drafted from the number, and 
sent off, under their proper officers, to another district ; 
after wliich they still polled from this camp over seven 
hundred votes.' 

" Gen. Pomeroy says that in the fourth and seventh dis- 
tricts, along the Sante F6 road, — 

" ' The invaders came together in one armed and organ- 
ized body, with trains of fifty wagons, besides horsemen, 
and, the night before election, pitched their camp in the 
vicinity of the polls ; and having appointed their own judges 
in place of those who, from intimidation or otherwise, failed 
to attend, they voted without any proof of residence. In 
these two election-districts, where tlie census shows one 

14* 



162 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

hundred voters, thei*e were polled three hundred and four- 
teen votes.' 

" In the Leavenworth district, hundreds of men break- 
fasted in Missouri, voted in Kansas, and returned on the 
same day to Missouri. While the voting was going on, one 
of their leaders made a speech, in which he told the Platte- 
couiity boys that they must stand aside, and let the Clay- 
county boys vote first, because they had the farthest to go 
in returning to their homes ; and the Platte-county boys of 
Missouri stood aside, and allowed the Clay-county boys 
ot Missouri to vote first and go home. 

" This memorial declares that 

" ' Hundreds of men came together in the sixteenth dis- 
trict, crossing the river from Missouri the day before elec- 
tion, and encamping together, armed and provisioned, made 
the fiercest threats against the lives of the judges, and during 
the night called several times at the house of one of them 
for the purpose of intimidating him, declaring in the pres- 
ence of his wife that a rope had been prepared to hang 
him : and although we are not prepared to say that these 
threats would have been carried out, yet they served to 
produce his resignation, and give these invaders, in the sub- 
stitution, control of the polls ; and, on the morning of the 
election, a steamboat brought from the town of Weston, 
Mo., to Leavenworth, an accession to their number of sev- 
eral hundied more, who returned in the same boat after 
depositing their votes. There were over nine hundred and 
fifty votes polled, besides from a hundred to a hundred and 
fifty actual residents who were deterred or discoiiraged 
from voting ; while the census returns show but three hun- 
dred and eighty-five votes in the district a month before. Not 
less than six hundred votes were hei'e given by tliese non- 
residents of the Territory, who voted without being sworn 



AFFAIES m KANSAS. 163 

as to their qualifications, and, immediately after the elec- 
tion, returned to Missouri ; some of them being the incum- 
bents of important public offices there.' 

"I will now, sir, quote what Gen. Pomeroy says of the 
election in the eighteenth district ; and I ask the attention 
of the senator from Missouri to this statement :^ — 

" ' In the eighteenth election district, where the popu- 
lation was sparse, and no great amount of foreign votes 
was needed to overpower it, a detachment from Missouri, 
from sixty to a hundred, passed in with a train of wagons, 
arras, and ammunition, making their camp the night; 
before the election near Moorestown, the place of the polls, 
without even a pretext of residence, and returning imme- 
diately to Missouri after their work was done ; their leader 
and captain being a distinguished citizen of Missouri, but 
lute the presiding-officer of the Senate of the United States, 
and who had bowie-knife and revolver belted around him, 
apparently ready to shed the blood of any man who refused 
to be enslaved. All these facts we are prepared to establish, 
if necessary, by proof that would be considered competent 
in a court of justice.' 

" Gen. Pomeroy expresses the opinion 

" ' That not less than three thousand votes were given 
by these armed invaders, who came organized in bands, with 
officers and arms, and tents and provisions, and munitions 
of war, as though they were marching upon a foreign foe 
instead of their own unoffending fellow-citizens. Upon 
the principal road leading into our Territory, and passing 
several important polls, they numbered not less than twelve 
hundred men ; and one camp alone contained not less than 
six hundred. They arrived at their several destinations 
the night before the election, and having pitched their 
camps, and placed their sentries, waited tor the coming 



164 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

day. Baggage-wagons were there, with arms and amm-u- 
nition enough for a protracted fight, and among them two 
brass field-pieces ready chai-ged. They came with drums 
beating, and fiags flying ; and their leaders were of the most 
prominent and conspicuous men of their State.' 

" How very considerate it was, Mr. President, in these 
' prominent and conspicuous men,' with their baggage-wag- 
ons and cannons and rifles and drums and flying flags, to 
lead the men of Western Missouri over into the forests and 
prairies of Kansas to protect the ballot-boxes from those 
dangerous men, the armed colonists of New England ! 

" Sir, the gentleman from Connecticut wishes to know 
why the seats of the legislators elected by the Missourians 
were not contested. I will tell him. Mr. Phillips, a young 
lawyer of Leavenworth, not himself a candidate, took meas- 
ures to have the seat of the member fi'om the sixteenth 
district contested ; and what was the result ? He was 
taken over into Missouri and lynched, because he dared, 
simply on patriotic grounds, to dispute the right of the 
member to his seat, into which he had been voted by these 
armed men from Missouri. 

" Sir, the whole power and patronage of this govern- 
ment, from the time when the Kansas and Nebraska Act 
went into opei'ation to this hour, has been given to crush 
out the freemen of Kansas, and to plant the institution of 
slavery upon that virgin soil. 

" The officers of the United States in the Territory of 
Kansas — the judges, the district-attorney, the secretary, 
and the marshal — are all slave-State men ; and their influ- 
ence has been given in favor of making Kansas a slave 
State, Gov. Reeder, who undertook to protect the people 
in their legal rights, was stricken down under the pretence 
that he had been speculating in the public lands. Of twen- 



AFFAIRS m KANSAS. 1G5 

ty-one officers of the Federal Government in the Terri- 
tory, nineteen are slave-State men, and one is a free-State 
man ; but already he is marked by Atchison, and another 
designated for his place. Within the last ten days, men 
from Kansas have called upon the executive to remonstrate 
against this striking-down of a public officer simply for the 
crime of being in favor of free institutions. 

" When I yielded the floor yesterday for an adjourn- 
ment, I was speaking of the election of the 30th of March, 
1855. The result of that election was, that the nineteen 
districts in Kansas were carried by the proslavery party, 
and that more than six thousand votes were given in that 
Territory, where, thirty days before, there were less than 
three thousand voters. 

" The question was put yesterday by the honorable sen- 
ator from Connecticut, why the governor gave certificates 
of election on that occasion. I will simply say, that Gov. 
Reeder, in the cases brought before him, did refuse to de- 
liver the certificates ; that he made the refusal in the pres- 
ence of the men who claimed them with bowie-knives and 
revolvers in their belts, and amidst threats of his life ; and, 
while he read the statement, he held a cocked revolver in 
his hand for necessary self-defence. There were a few 
devoted friends around him, expecting to see him murdered 
on that occasion. In the cases not at the time contested 
in the cases where at the time no one dared to raise a ques- 
tion, in the cases where at the time a contest was neglected, 
the certificates were given. A new election was ordered 
in those cases where the certificates were set aside ; and, in 
pursuance thereof, the people elected representatives and 
councillors, and commissions were issued to them. They 
1 in6t on the second day of July at Pawnee ; and both 
I branches of the legislature, without examining the facts, 

i 



166 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

and positively refusing to do so, voted out the men cliosen 
by the people of Kansas, and voted in the men originally 
chosen by the Missouri invaders. This legislatm-e thus 
chosen moved the place of meeting from Pawnee to Shaw- 
nee Mission against the consent of the governor, who re- 
fused afterwards to recognize it as a legislature. They 
went on, and passed the laws which are now brought here. 
Some of those laws are as inhuman as any code ever pre- 
sented for the government of a conquered people. 

" When the legi-^latvire assembled, when it turned out 
the men who had been legally chosen, when it brought in 
the men imposed on the Territory by ai-med invaders from 
a neighboring State, whim it removed to the Shawnee 
Mission, when it was rejmdiated by your governor sent 
there by this administration, then it was that the freemen 
of Kansas assembled in their primary meetings, and de- 
clared against tiie legality of this legislature and its acts. 
A convention of tiie people was called. That convention 
assembled, and framed a constitution ; the people ratified it ; 
and tliat constitution is now submitted for the action of 
the Congress of the United States. The senator from Con- 
necticut denounces it as a ' spurious convention.' Sir, this 
convention was the act of tiie people of Kansas in their 
sovereign primary capacity. They accepted the doctrine 
of squatter sovereignty. They accepted the doctrines laid 
down by Madison, by Marshall, by Story, by Judge Wilson, 
by Buchanan and Wright, and the chiefs of the Democratic 
party, in the days when the Democratic pai'ty paid some 
little regard to the principles of popular government. 

" Sir, the senator from Connecticut denounced this 
act of the people as a ' spurious convention.' In 1836, 
the freemen of Michigan, disregarding the action of their 
legislature, came together in their primary capacity, 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 167 

framed a constitution, sent that constitution to Congress, 
and that constitution was carried tlirough the Senate by 
the votes of Benton, Buchanan, Wright, and the chiefs of 
the Democratic party ; but that was in the days of Andrew 
Jaclvson, when it was supposed the people of this coun- 
try had retained the rights guaranteed to them by the 
fundamental laws of the country. Sir, Andrew Jackson 
did not denounce the movement as an insnrrectionary 
one, altliough they refused to receive the officer wliom 
he sent to them. The Congress of tliat day did not 
denounce those men as traitors to the country, as tlie 
men of Kansas are denounced in the documents before 
us, ten thousand extra copies of which we are asked to 
publish. No, sir; no! Tiiis is the first time in the 
history of this country when the people have assembled 
in their primary capacity, and exercised their right — 
their inborn, natural right — to change their government 
at their pleasure, and have, for such an act, been held up 
as traitors by the government of the country. 

" Sir, the Democracy in both branches of Congress 
sustained the doctrines maintained by the suffrage party 
in Riiode Island ; and it so happens, that, when Gov. 
Dorr took refuge in the old Granite State, among the 
first who recognized the doctrines. which he maintained 
was the man who is chief magistrate of tlie United 
States, and who now denounces the freemen of Kansas, 
and holds up to the country, as violators of the law, men 
who. are, on the 4th of March next, to be arrested if they 
dare assemble in their legislative capacity and choose 
two United-States senators to come and implore us to 
receive Kansas into tliis sisterhood of States, and thus 
save this fair Territory from bloodshed and ruin. Yes, 
sir, this man, who now characterizes as ' revolutionary ' 



168 LIFE OP HENRY WILSON. 

what has ah-eacly been done by the people of Kansas, 
and warns them that further action ' will become treason- 
able insurrection,' welcomed Gov. Dorr to tlie capital of 
New Hampshire on the 14th of December, 1812, in a 
series of resolutions, declaring, that, ' when the people 
act in their original sovereign capacity, they are not 
bound to conform to forms not instituted by themselves ; ' 
that ' the day of free government would never dawn upon 
the eyes of oppressed millions if the friends of liberty 
should wait for leave from tyrants to abolish tyranny.' 

" Sir, in pursuing this history, I have followed the 
order of time ; and I am now brought to speak of anotlier 
invasion from Missouri, — an invasion which took place 
on the 1st of October last, when Gen. Whitfield was 
elected. I state here — on the authority of gentlemen, 
some half-dozen of whom are within the sound of my 
voice, and who will prove it under oath before your 
committee if you will permit them to do so — that hun- 
dreds of men went over from Missouri, and voted in that 
election. 

" The invasion — the fourth invasion, of which we 
have heard so much in these papers from the executive 
department — grew out of the cold-blooded murder of a 
man by the name of Dow, at Hickory Point, by one 
Coleman. Mr. Branson and his neighbors took the mor- 
tal remains of the murdered Dow from the highway, 
where he had lain for hours, and consigned them to his 
last resting-place. The murderer has never been tried 
nor arrested. Branson, with whom Dow had lived, was 
arrested on a peace-warrant by Sheriff Jones, and 
rescued by some fifteen of his neighbors and friends. 
Then it was that the stories were manufactured, that a 
thousand men were organized at Lawrence, armed with 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 169 

Sharpe's rifles and cannon, ready to resist the authori- 
ties. There were not then more than three hundred 
Sharpe's rifles in Lawrence, and not one cannon. There 
was no Armed soldiery in Lawrence when these charges 
were made : there were armed men there ; but they were 
not embodied. Of the men who aided in the rescue of 
Branson, — an act which might take jjlace in any State, 
at any time, without any governor thinking of calling 
out the armed militia, much less the forces of the 
United States, — only two ever lived in Lawrence; and 
they were not in Lawrence at that time. The reports 
mentioned in these despatches about burning buildings 
have turned out to be exaggerated and misrepresented. 

" On the strength of these reports, however, Gov. 
Shannon sent his letter of the 28th of November to the 
president ; and on the next day he issued that fatal proc- 
lamation, which fomented, at the time, the invasion from 
Missouri ; and this was followed by his telegraphic 
despatch of the 1st of December. Here let me say, that 
in this letter, proclamation, and despatch, Gov. Shannon 
shows that he is not a man who comprehends his position 
or his duties. He was excited and frightened by the 
reports and rumors he relied upon. During this period, 
when he ordered out the militia and telegraphed the 
president, despatches, founded on rumors, were sent into 
Missouri : and the result was, that from one thousand to 
two thousand armed men came from Missouri into Kan- 
sas ; and they were incorporated into that ' little force 
of less than four hundred men,' spoken of in these 
despatches from Kansas, which rallied to the call of the 
officers of the militia. Sir, if the people of Kansas had 
been with the governor, if they had sympatliized with 
him in his ill-starred movements, if they had believed 

15 



170 - LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

that law and order were in danger, would they not 
have rallied to his support? On that occasion, the 
arsenal of the United States in Western Missouri was 
hroken open ; arms were stolen, and carried into Kansas. 
Notliing is said about this robbery in these reports. Mis- 
sourians broke open this arsenal, and stole cannon, 
ammunition, and muskets, for the purpose of going on a 
marauding invasion ; and the late president of the Senate 
was compelled — so great was the danger — to hasten 
after tliem to keep them from hurting somebody ! Yet 
not a word is said about it in these despatches. Sir, if 
the freemen of Kansas had broken open that arsenal, and 
had stolen even a gun-flint, you would have had a proc- 
lamation from your governor and your president, and 
the army of the United States would have been called 
out to put them down. But it was the organized men 
of the blue lodges in Western Missouri who did it. 
They have been, and now are, permitted to violate all 
law with impunity. Woodson, the secretary of Kansas, 
urged on these lawless men from Missouri by assuring 
them that ' there is no doubt in regard to having a fight ; 
and, if we are defeated this time, the Territory is lost to 
the South.' 

" The invading hosts from Missouri encamped on the 
Wakarusa, witliin about six miles of beleaguered Law- 
rence. In marked contrast to the inconsiderate folly 
of Shannon was the prudent, firm, and heroic bear- 
ing of Gen. Robinson. Throughout the wliole con- 
test his prudence was signally manifested ; and, in the 
opinion of many, the country was saved from bloodshed 
and civil war by his action. On the 7th of December 
your governor tells you he went to Lawrence ; but lie 
does not tell you the whole story. He did go to Law- 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 171 

rence, and he met the Lawrence men, and the Lawrence 
women too ; and he saw the hiflexible determination of 
the one, and the calm devotion of the other. He told 
gentlemen who directed the affairs of Lawrence, that 
tliey had been misrepresented ; that they misunderstood 
each other; and then, after two days of conference and 
negotiation, he made a treaty. The first sentence of the 
treaty acknowledges that the governor and the people of 
Lawrence had not understood each other. Here is a 
man who asked the president for the army of the United 
States; who ordered out the militia, and incorporates 
into the militia of Kansas, by the showing of these papers, 
from a thousand to fifteen hundred Missourians ; and 
then, after doing this, he went to Lawrence. And what 
did he find ? People who flew to arms simply to protect 
their homes and their firesides against an armed invasion 
of two thousand men who were threatening with oaths 
to burn their city and to blot them out from existence. 
I say, Gov. Sliannon made a treaty with Gen. Lane 
(known to some senators here) and with Gen. Robinson 
(a mail who, I hope, is hereafter to be known to sena- 
tors) : and this treaty closes with the agreement, on the 
part of Gov. Shannon, that he ' will use his influence to 
secure to the citizens of Kansas remuneration for any 
damages sustained by the sheriff's posse in Douglas 
County ; that he has not called upon persons residents of 
any otlier States to aid in the execution- of the laws ; 
and that he has not any authority or legal power to do 
so, nor will he exercise any such power ; and that he 
will not call on any citizen of another State who may be 
here.' Li these negotiations he agreed to waive the 
question of the validity of the laws of the Territorial legis- 
lature. Then he issued an order to Lane and Robinson 



172 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

to incorporate into the service of Kansas the militia of 
Lawrence, and directed thein ' to use the enrolled force 
for the preservation of the peace, and the protection of 
Lawrence and vicinity ' against the armed men on the 
banks of the Wakarusa. 

" Mr. President, this treaty, which Shannon signed 
with Lane and Robinson on Sunday, the 9th of Decem- 
ber, 1855, will stand a perpetual confession of his inca- 
pacity and folly ; this order, giving Lane and Robinson 
authority ' to use the enrolled force ' — with those famed 
Sharpe's rifles — 'for the preservation of peace, and the 
protection of Lawrence and vicinity ' against the armed 
bands his fatal proclamation had summoned, will stand a 
living testimony that the men of Lawrence were the 
guardians of law. Yes, sir, that treaty and that order 
will stand, an eternal expression at once of error and 
repentance. 

" After signing these evidences of his own humiliation, 
he returned to the camp on the Wakarusa, and then, 
to the leaders of the crew he had drawn together, pro- 
claimed his truce with the men of Lawrence. Back to 
their homes in Missouri sauntered these baffled bands of 
lawless deperadoes, cold, sullen, dispirited. They came 
to the banks of the Wakarusa big with threats of ven- 
geance upon the free-State men of Lawrence : they 
returned with bitter curses upon the imbecile governor 
whose proclamation had drawn them from their homes. 
Gen. Stringfellow, whose pure taste the senator from 
South Carolina can vouch for, denounced the treachery 
of Shannon, Capt. Leonard, the leader of one of these 
gangs of border banditti, through the columns of ' The 
St. Joseph Gazette ' declares that your governor ' raises 
a storm; and then, to quell it, Judas-like professes his 



ATFAIRS IN KANSAS. * 173 

special friendship, first for one party, and then, I con- 
jecture, for the other. But, however this may be, he 
descends to tlie despicable position of a common liar 
both to the one party and the other.' 

" You may search the records of the country from the 
settlement at Jamestown to this day, and you can find no 
instance of such incapacity, folly, and superadded crimi- 
nality, as Wilson Shannon displayed on that occasion, 
or such an utter disregard of the rights of the people as 
was manifested by the border settlers of Missouri. 

" This administration has now clothed Wilson Shannon 
— whose incompetency has been made manifest to the 
world — with the civil and military authority, and with 
all- the power of the government to execute the laws and 
to maintain order in the Territory. The duties assigned 
this officer in the present critical condition of affairs on 
your frontiers are of the gravest and most weighty char- 
acter. Sir, your administration — by the wanton repeal 
of the Missouri prohibition, by the failure to protect the 
actual residents of Kansas in their rights, and by the 
blundering acts and criminal remissness of the official 
authorities — has brought the nation to the perilous edge 
of civil strife. Sir, this administration owes it to the 
country, whose peace is in danger this day, to intrust the 
responsible and delicate duties of governor of Kansas 
to a prudent, judicious, sagacious statesman, — a man 
of individual honor and personal character, in whom 
the people can place the fullest confidence. Wilson 
Shannon is not that man. The man who could de- 
scend to degrading companionship around the gaming- 
tables of those saloons of San Francisco (described 
by that experienced traveller, Madame Ida Pfeiffer, 
as the most dissolute she had ever seen in her tour 

15* 



174 ■* LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of the globe) with Mexicji.!! greasers, the escaped 
convicts of the British penal colonies, and the des- 
peradoes of the Old World and the New; the man 
who could — while Kansas was overrun by armed bands 
summoned around Lawrence by his own reckless letters, 
despatches, and proclamations ; while civil war lowered 
over the people intrusted to his care ; while an honored 
citizen, stricken down by the assassin, lay cold in death, 
and a devoted wife was weeping over his mortal remains — 
make himself the humiliating object of the derision of his 
enemies, and of the pity of his friends, by an exhibition 
of gross intoxication, — is not the man to whom the 
American people would intrust the affairs of Kansas. 

" I call the attention of the Senate, Mr. President, to 
another forray over the borders, — to the fifth Missouri 
invasion : I mean the irruption into Kansas on the 15th 
of December, when the people were called upon to vote 
upon the constitution framed by that convention the 
senator from Connecticut is pleased to pronounce ' spu- 
rious.' Along the Missouri border the people in several 
of the voting precincts were overawed by threats of im- 
pending violence, and meetings were not holden. At 
Leavenworth the election was broken up by the lawless 
brutality of men, many of whom had been ordered to 
Leavenworth on that day to be formally discharged from 
service in the Kansas militia, into which they had been 
incorporated. At the dinner-hour, while most of the 
people were absent from the polls, these ' border ruffians ' 
rushed upon the officers, broke up the meeting, beat to 
the earth Witherell the clerk, whose life was saved by 
the heroic daring of Brown, since foully murdered, who 
rushed to his rescue at a moment when the uplifted axe 
of the assassin was about to descend upon his prostrate 
form. 



I 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 175 

" On the 22d of December another forray was made 
upon freedom at Leavenworth ; and the press of Mr. Del- 
ahay, which barely escaped on the 15th, was destroyed. 
Mr. Delahay is a native of Maryland, and has been a 
slaveholder in his native State, in Alabama, and in Mis- 
souri, — a man who has little sympathy with antislavery 
men. He is simply one of those moderate, conservative 
men who believe that ' free labor is honorable, and slave 
labor is dishonorable,' and that the permanent interests 
of Kansas would bo promoted by making it a free com- 
monwealth. 

" On the 15th of January the people of Kansas were 
called upon to elect officers under the constitution adopt- 
ed on the 15th of December. Another assault upon the 
freedom of the ballot-box was made at Easton by armed 
men. The people attempted to resist the destruction of 
the ballot-boxes by these marauding squads that were 
prowling over the country, insulting the people, and 
robbing them of their means of defence. Peaceable, 
law-abiding citizens were hunted down, fired upon, and 
their lives put in imminent peril. Some of them had to 
flee to Lawrence, as to a city of refuge, to save them- 
selves from the vengeance of the prowling assassins. A 
party of these lawless desperadoes captured Mr. Brown 
— who so bravely rescued Witherell at Leavenworth — 
and several others ; robbed them of their arms ; and then, 
with hatchets and knives, they fiendishly hacked and cut 
Brown to pieces, flung him in a dying condition into 
a carriage, and bore him to his home to breathe out his 
life in the arms of his distracted wife, another sacrifice to 
the dark spirit of slave propagandism. 

" To-day, sir, unless they are on their march, there are 
arming and organizing in Western Missouri, in the blue 



176 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

lodges, ill the secret camps, hosts of men for another 
invasion. Sleepless eyes are upon these movements 
organized by Atchison and his subalterns. Gen. Lane 
and Gen. Robinson sent to the president, on the 21st of 
January, a telegraphic despatch. Gen. Lane — a man 
who trod the battle-field of Buena Vista ; a man who 
knows something of what war is ; who knows something 
of the threats that have been made, and the preparations 
that are now making, on the borders of Western Mis- 
souri, for another lawless invasion of Kansas — has ap- 
pealed to the president for protection. He is no fanatic. 
Sir, you cannot call him an abolitionist; at least, not 
yet. 

" The senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Hale) says 
he will be one soon. The scenes through which lie is 
passing are calculated to abolitionize men made of the 
hardest natures. John Quincy Adams once said that a 
man ' has the right to be an abolitionist ; and, being an 
abolitionist, he violates no law, human or divine.' Gen. 
Lane may be an abolitionist ; but, sir, he is not one now. 
On the 21st of January he asked the president to send 
the military force stationed at Fort Leavenworth to pro- 
tect the people of Kansas against an invasion which is 
' organizing on our border, amply supplied with artillery, 
for the avowed purpose of invading our Territory, de- 
molishing our towns, and butchering our unoffending 
free-State citizens.' 

" Two days after, — on Jan. 23, — Gen, Lane and 
Gen. Robinson asked the president to issue his procla- 
mation forbidding this lawless invasion of their Territory. 
The senator from Connecticut flatters himself that those 
of us who do not approve the course of the adminis- 
tration will be greatly disappointed to find that the lead- 



AFFArRS IN lOVNSAS. 177 

ers of the free-State movement in Kansas have implored 
the executive to issue his proclamation. Let not the 
senator from Connecticut lay the -flattering unction to 
his soul that we are chagrined by the disclosure of this 
correspondence. Robinson and Lane, in behalf of the 
imperilled people of Kansas, asked the president to issue 
' his proclamation immediately, forbidding the invasion, 
which, if carried out as planned, will stand forth without 
a parallel in the world's history.' Tliey did not ask the 
president for his proclamation against the wroHged and 
oppressed people of Kansas. They asked for bread ; 
the president gave them a stone : they asked for a fisli ; 
the president gave them a serpent. 

" The president, sir, has issued his proclamation ; but 
that proclamation is chiefly and mainly directed against 
Lane and Robinson, and the liberty-loving, law-abiding 
free-State men of Kansas. Like his annual message, in 
which he softly spoke of the long series of outrages you 
will scarcely find paralleled in the history of Christian 
States as ' irregularities ; ' like that special message, in 
which the aggressive acts of the Missouri invaders were 
covered over with mild and honeyed phrases, and the 
defensive measures of the actual settlers treated as insur- 
rectionary acts, demanding executive censure, — this proc- 
lamation will be received on the Western borders, by tlie 
men who by their votes and by their resolves have dic- 
tated law to Kansas, with shouts of approval. Sir, this 
proclamation will carry no terror into the blue lodges and 
secret clubs of Western Missouri, 

" But, sir, we were congratulated yesterday by the 
senator from Connecticut that the laws were to be exe- 
cuted, and order preserved. I call the attention of the 
Senate and of the country to the order of the secretary 



178 LIFE OP HENRY WILSON. 

of war. What does this order say to Col. Sumner? 
Does it clearly and expressly command him to arrest, at 
all hazards, any aggressive movement upon Kansas from 
Missouri ? The secretary of war informs Col. Sumner 
that 

" ' The president has, by proclamation, warned all per- 
sons combined for insurrection, or invasive aggression, 
against the organized government of the Territory of 
Kansas, or associated to resist the due execution of the 
laws therein, to abstain from such revolutionary and law- 
less proceedings.' 

" Does the secretary, then, direct Col. Sumner to defend 
Kansas against ' invasive aggression ' ? No, sir ; no ! 
The secretary then issues the orders of the government 
to Col. Sumner in these terms : — 

" ' If, therefore, the governor of the Territory, finding 
the ordinary course of judicial proceeding and the pow- 
ers vested in the United-States marshals inadequate for 
the suppression of insurrectionary combinations, or armed 
resistance to the execution of the law, should make requi- 
sition upon you to furnish a military force to aid him in 
the performance of that official duty, you are hereby 
directed to employ for that purpose the forces under your 
command.' 

" Sir, this is not a direction to Col. Sumner to use his 
forces against the armed Missouri invaders. The secre- 
tary tolls the colonel that the president has sent out his 
proclamation against those movements ; but, when he 
comes to direct the commander of the force of the United 
States what to do, he does not order him to use that 
force if there sliall be an invasion from the State of 
Missouri. Tlie secretary shrinks from putting himself 
against the lawless men who represent a power in this 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 179 

country that sustains tliom in their aggressive acts. Sir, 
the secretary bends to that power ; lie bows to these men, 
who have no ' quahns of conscience as to violating laws, 
state or national ; ' and we have had nothing but bows to 
these men for the last eighteen months from the other 
end of the avenue. 

" The reason why the government has not used its 
proper legitimate influences in Kansas for peace, for 
order, and for liberty, is the same reason which origi- 
nally snatched that four hundred and fifty thousand 
square miles of free soil, — consecrated forever to the 
laboring millions of this country, — and flung it open to 
the slave-extending interests. 

" Sir, I know that men in the confidence of the admin- 
istration have expressed the idea that the administration 
intends, if the people's legislature meets on the 4th of 
March, to arrest the members the moment they take 
the oath of office. It is a well-known fact, sir, — known 
by those who know any thing about affairs in Kansas, — 
tliat tliey do not intend to pass laws, or interfere in any 
way with the legislation of the country ; that they intend 
merely to assemble, state their grievances to the country, 
and choose senators to come here to implore us in God's 
name to carry out the wishes of the people, and allow 
Kansas to take her place in this Union of free com- 
monwealths. I understand these to be the inten- 
tions of the tried and trusted leaders of the free- 
State men in Kansas. You may arrest Gov. Robinson 
and the leaders of the free-State -party ; you may im- 
prison tliem if you will ; you may shed the blood of tlie 
actual settlers of Kansas : but you cannot break their 
spirits, or crush out their hopes. The peoole of Kansas 
are for a free State ; and, if it is made a slave State, it 



180 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

will be by the criminal remissness or direct interposition 
of this administration. Leave the people of Kansas free, 
uninfluenced by your slave-State officials you have thrust 
upon them, uninfluenced by foreign interposition, and 
they will bring her here clothed in the white robes of 
Freedom. 

" The senator from Missouri said to us the other day 
that the colonists from the East wished to keep others 
out ; that they wished to get possession of the Territory. 
Armed men, he said, had crossed from Missouri to protect 
the ballot-boxes against the armed colonists sent there by 
the Emigrant-aid Society. Did they protect the ballot- 
boxes on the 29th of November, 1854, when they went over 
and gave fifteen hundred votes ? Did they protect the 
ballot-boxes when they marched into Kansas on the 30th 
of March, with cannon, with revolver, and with rifle, dis- 
placed the election of officers, and delivered their hundreds 
of votes, and, in a place where there were but fifty-three 
voters, cast over six liundred ? Did they protect the 
ballot-boxes when they went there on the 15th of Decem- 
ber, and broke up the meeting at Leavenworth ? Did 
they protect the ballot-boxes on the 15th of January, 
when Brown was murdered in revenge for standing by 
the ballot-boxes and protecting them against them ? 

" Sir, men aided to go there by the Emigrant-aid So- 
ciety have never — no, sir, never — at any time, or on 
any occasion, interfered with the freedom of voting. 

' Whatever record leaps to light, 
They never can be shamed.' 

" Sir, I see that in the South there are movements from 
all quarters to get up emigrant-aid societies. The sena- 
tor from Mississippi (Mr. Brown), always frank and manly 



ATFAIES IN IvANSAS. 181 

on these questions, proposes that Mississippi shall send 
three hundred of her young men and three hundred of 
her bondmen into that Territory to plan and shape its 
future. I say to the honorable senator from Mississippi, 
Send your Mississippi young men and your Mississippi 
bondmen : you will never find, on the part of the men 
who went there from the North under the auspices of 
emigrant-aid societies, one single unlawful act to keep 
you out or rob you of one of your lawful rights. The 
men who charge the emigrants from the Nol-th with ag- 
gressions upon the men of other sections of the country 
utter that which has not the shadow of an element of 
truth in it ; and they know it, or they are grossly igno- 
rant of Kansas affaii-s. This proposition of tlie senator 
from Mississippi was followed by a letter from a represen- 
tative from South Carolina (Mr. Brooks), offering to give 
a hundred dollars, — one dollar for every man they will 
send from his section. I say to the senators from South 
Carolina, that if the offer of their colleague in the other 
House is accepted, and if the hundred men go from South 
Carolina to Kansas, they will never be interfered with 
in the exercise of their legal rights by the men who have 
gone there from New England or from the North. 

" Atchison, the organizer and chief of those border 
movements, thus appeals to the citizens of Georgia to 
come to the rescue ; for ' Kansas must have slave in- 
stitutions, OR Missouri must have free institutions.' 

" Sir, to appease the unhallowed desires of the slave 
propaganda, you complied with Atchison's demands, and 
repealed the Missouri prohibition. You then told the 
laboring-men of the republic, whose heritage you thus put 
in peril, that they could shape, mould, and fashion the 
institutions of those future commonwealths. Animated 

16 



182 LIFE OF HEITRY WILSON. 

by motives as pure and aims as lofty as ever actuated 
the founders of any portion of the globe, the sons of the 
North wended their way to this region beyond the Missis- 
sippi. Tliese emigrants did not all go tliere under the 
auspices of emigrant-aid societies : for it is estimated 
that not more than one-fourth of the settlers of Kansas 
are from New England and New York ; that nearly one- 
half of the dwellers in that Territory are from Pennsyl- 
vania and the North-west. 

" Only about one-fourth of the actual residents of Kan- 
sas are from the slaveholding States ; and many of these 
settlers from the South, perhaps a majority of them, are 
in favor of making Kansas a free State. That many of 
these emigrants from the South are in favor of rearing 
free institutions will surprise no one who understands 
their condition. Most of these emigrants are poor men, 
and have felt in their native homes the malign influences 
which bear with oppressive force upon free labor. Thirty- 
five per cent of the emigration of the slave States has 
sought homes in the free States ; while less than ten per- 
cent of the emigration from the free States and from the 
Old World find homes in the slave States, although those 
States embrace the largest as well as the fairest regions 
of' the country east of the Rocky Mountains. 

" Coming from fields blasted by the sweat of artless, 
untutored, unpaid labor ; from regions once teeming 
with the products of a prolific soil, now ' exhibiting,' to 
quote the language applied ' with sorrow ' to his native 
country by the senator from Alabama (Mr. Clay), ' the 
painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia 
and the Carolinas ; ' witnessing the prosperity of free, edu- 
cated labor, — many of these sons of the South meet the 
men of the North, and stand with them, shoulder to 
shoulder, in upholding the institutions of freedom* 



AFFAIES IN KANSAS. 183 

" Within the Territory, the men of the North and the 
men of the South meet together in council. Northern 
and Southern men stood side by side in those assemblages 
of the people that put tlie brand of condemnation upon 
the acts of the legislature imposed upon them ; North- 
ern and Southern men sat in council in that Constitu- 
tional Convention the senator from Connecticut now pro- 
nounces ' spurious ; ' and Northern and Southern men 
stood side by side in the trenches of beleaguered Law- 
rence. 

" Leave these men now in Kansas free from Missouri 
forrays and administration corruption, and, in spite of the 
inhuman, uncliristian, and devilish acts to be found in 
the past legislation of the Territory, they will bring Kan- 
sas here, as they have done already, robed in the gar- 
ments of Freedom. Men of the South ; you who would 
blast the virgin soil of Kansas with the blighting, wither- 
ing, consuming curse of slavery ; you who would banish 
the educated, self-dependent, free laboring-men of the 
North, to make room for the untutored, thriftless, depend- 
ent bondmen of the South, — vote down the free-State 
men of Kansas, if you can ; but do not send ' border 
ruffians' to rob or burn their humble dwellings, and mur- 
der brave men, for the crime of fidelity to their cherished 
convictions." 

Replying, April 14, to Mr. Douglas, who had stigma- 
tized Mr. Wilson and his party as " black Republicans," 
he uses these heroic, telling words : — 

" The senator from Illinois may denounce us as black 
Republicans, as abolition agitators, if he thinks such 
language worthy of the Senate or of himself; but the 
issue is being made up in the country between the peo- 
ple and the slave propaganda. He told us the other day 



184 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

that he intended to subdue us. I say to that senator, We 
accept your issue. Nominate some one of your scarred 
veterans ; some one who is committed, fully committed, 
to your policy. You want a candidate that is scarred 
with your battles. Well, sir, if he goes into the battle 
of 1856, he will not come out of it without scars. You 
have made the issue : put your chieftains at the head. 
No man fitter to lead than the honorable senator himself 
in tliis contest ; for his position has the merit at least of 
being bold ; and I like a bold, brave man who stands by 
his declarations. Now, I say to senators on the other 
side of the chamber. We will accept your issues. You 
may sneer at us as abolition agitators. That may have 
some little effect in some sections of the North, but very 
little indeed. We have passed beyond that. The people 
of this country are being educated up to a standard 
above all these little sneering phrases. We will accept 
your issue ; but you will not, can not, subdue us. I tell 
the honorable senator he may vote us down, but subdue 
us never. We belong to a race of men that never were 
subdued ; and, if anybody undertakes that work, he will 
find he has taken a rather costly contract. Subdue us ! 
subdue us ! Sir, you may vote us down ; but we stand 
with the fathers. Our cause is the cause of human 
nature. The star of duty shines upon our pathway ; 
and we will pursue that pathway, looking back for in- 
structions to the great men who founded the institutions 
of the republic, looking up to Him whose ' hand moves 
the stars and heaves the pulses of the deep.' I tell the 
senator that this talk about subduing us and conquering 
us will not do. Gentlemen, you cannot do it. You 
may vote us down ; but we shall live to fight another 
day. (Laughter.} 



AFFAIRS IN KANSAS. 185 

Mr. Douglas. — 

" He who fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day." 

Mr. Wilson. — " We shall not run away to live : we 
shall live to run. (Laughter.) We shall go into the 
conflict in the coming contest like the Zouaves at Inker- 
mann, ' with the light of battle on our faces.' If we fall, 
we shall fall to rise again ; for the arm of God is beneath 
us, and the current of advancing civilization is bearing 
us onward to assured triumph. 

" Now, I will tell you what we intend to do. We 
shall stand here and vote to defeat the bill reported by 
the senator from Illinois^ because we believe, by the pro- 
visions of that bill, Kansas can be and will be invaded 
and conquered. We shall vote for the admission of this 
petition, for the admission of all petitions, from the peo- 
ple of Kansas ; we shall vote for the admission of Kansas 
into this Union as a free State. If we fail, if you vote 
us down, we shall go to the country with that issue. We 
shall appeal to the people, to the toiling millions whose 
heritage is in peril, to come to the rescue of the people 
of Kansas, struggling to preserve their sacred rights. 
Madness may rule the hour ; the black power, now 
enthroned in the National Government, may prolong for 
another Olympiad its waning influence : but we shall 
ultimately rescue the republic from the unnatural rule 
of a slaveholding aristocracy. Before the rising spirit 
of liberty this domination will go down. 

" A quarter of a century ago the conquest and sub- 
jugation of the republic was complete. Institutions of 
learning, benevolence, and religion, political organiza- 
tions, and public men, ay, and the people themselves, 



186 LIFE OF HENKY WILSON. 

all bowed in unresisting submission to the iron dominion 
of the slave-power. Murmurs of discontent sometimes 
broke upon the ear of the country : here and there a 
solitary voice uttered its feeble protest against the domi- 
nation of a power which had inthralled the heart, con- 
science, and intellect of the conquered North ; but the 
overshadowing despotism of that power was complete. 
Twenty-five years have not yet closed since a few heroic 
men raised the banner of impartial liberty. Then we 
liad not a single member of the Senate or House of 
Representatives. Not a single State legislature was 
with us. The political press of the country covered the 
humble movement with ridicule and contempt ; always 
excepting ' The New- York Evening Post,' then con- 
ducted by that inflexible Democrat, William Leggett, who 
went to a premature grave cheered by the assurance that 
he ' had written his name in ineffaceable letters on the 
abolition record.' 

" Twenty years ago the public sneered at and defied 
the few proscribed and hunted followers who rallied 
around the humble leaders that inaugurated the move- 
ment, which, within two years, has secured a popular 
majority in the free States of more than three hundred 
thousand. We have an overwhelming majority there to- 
day against your policy ; and, if that majority is united, 
we can control the policy of the country. We shall 
triumph ; we shall enlarge this side of tlie chamber ; 
we shall thin out the other. (Laughter.) We have 
done some of that work recently in New England. We 
shall have a majority in this chamber yet ; we shall 
have a majority in the other House ; and we shall have a 
man at the other end of the avenue. We shall take the 
government of this country, and we shall govern the 
country as the true Democratic party. 



AFFAIRS m KANSAS. 187 

" Now, siY, I have told the senator from Illinois what 
we intend to do ; and we have no doubt of doing it. If 
the honorable senator wishes, through the coming weeks 
of this debate, to throw on this side of the chamber the 
taunting epithets of ' black Eepublicans ' and ' abolition 
agitators,' he may find that it is a game tliat two can 
play at. I think he and I and others had better dis- 
cuss these grave questions without the application of 
taunts and epithets." 

On the twenty-second day of May, 1856, Preston S. 
Brooks, member of tlie House from South Carolina, came 
into the Senate-chamber and made a dastardly assault on 
Mr. Sumner, who tell prostrate, under the repeated blows, 
upon the floor. This act of violence was occasioned by 
the senator's able speech, entitled " The Crime against 
Kansas," on Mr. Seward's bill for the admission of the 
State of Kansas into the Union. Mr. Wilson, at that 
moment in the room of Mr. Banks, immediately came into 
the Senate-chamber, where he found his colleague stricken 
down, and weltering unconscious in his blood. He aided 
in carrying him to his chamber, placing him upon his 
couch, and alleviating his pain. The next day he appro- 
priately called the attention of the Senate to the assault 
upon his colleague. 

On motion of Mr. Seward, a committee was appointed : 
and on the morning of the 27th instant, the floor and 
galleries being filled with anxious listeners, Mr. Wilson 
rose, and in a few fearless woi'ds characterized the assault 
upon his colleague as " brutal, murderous, and cowardly ; " 
when 

Mr. Butler of South Carolina, with whose family 
Brooks the assailant was connected, rudely interrupted 
him; and cries of " Order, order!" rang through the 



188 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tumultuous assembly. Threats of personal violence arose 
in the confusion ; but they liad no terror for him who 
knew no fear. In the evening he went to Trenton to 
speak before the State Convention ; and on the morning 
of the 29th inst. he received, by the hand of Gen. 
Joseph Lane of Oregon, a challenge from Mr. Brooks. 
Taking up his pen, he at once replied in words which . 
are memorable as embodying tlie views of Northern men 
upon duelling. 

Washington, May 29, half-past ten o'clock. 
Hon. P. S. Brooks. 

Sir, — Your note of the 27th inst. was placed in my 
hands by your friend Gen. Lane at twenty minutes past 
ten o'clock to-day. 

I characterized on the floor of the Senate the assault 
upon my colleague as brutal, murderous, and cowardly. 
I thought so then : I think so now. I have no qualifica- 
tions whatever to make in regard to those words. 

I have never entertained or expressed, in the Senate 
or elsewhere, the idea of personal responsibility in the 
sense of the duellist. 

I have always regarded duelling as the lingering relic 
of a barbarous civilization, whicli the law of tlie. country 
has branded as a crime. While, therefore, I religiously 
believe in the right of self-defence in its broadest sense, 
the law of my country and the mature civilization of my 
whole life alike forbid me to meet you for the purpose 
indicated in your letter. 

Your obedient servant, 

Henry Wilson. 

This reply to Brooks, so firmly, so tersely, and so 
serenely expressed, touched the very key-note of public 



LETTER FROM MR. HARTE. 189 

sentiment, and was most enthusiastically received through 
he whole Northern country. While the right of self- 
3efence was not yielded, the unlawful practice of duel- 
ing was condemned as the remains of barbarism, and 
:he three strong, pointed words of rebuke, " brutal, mur- 
ierous, and cowardly," sent back fearlessly to the chal- 
lenger. The press, the pulpit, and men of every political 
complexion, at the North, indorsed the action ; and those 
few words, written in a moment from the impulse of an 
iioncst heart, have done something to drive the idea of 
iuelling from the mind of the nation. 

The "cowardly conclave" still beset the steps of Mr. 
Wilson, as the following letter indicates; but they had 
not tlie courage to strike : — 

,^ „- Washington, June 2, 1856. 

Hon. H. Wilson. 

Sir, — A gentleman in constant association with the 
South-Carolina members sent to my house last night to 
inform me that it was intended to attack you this 
morning. 

Brooks did not leave town on Friday evening, but was 
parading among the groups at the president's house on 
Saturday afternoon. He probably does not intend to 
leave until after the action of the House upon the out- 
rage. I mention these facts for your information, and to 
say that you had better be on your guard. 

Very truly, E. Harte. 

On the 13th of June Mr. Wilson made a brave and 
manly reply to Mr. Butler's speech of the two preced- 
ing days assailing Mr. Sumner and the State of Massa- 
chusetts. Tlie passages we present will show its spirit 
and its forensic power: — 



190 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" Mr. President, — I feel constrained by a sense of duty 
to my State, by personal relations to my colleague and 
friend, to trespass for a few moments upon the time and 
attention of the Senate. 

" You have listened, Mr. President, the Senate has 
listened, these thronged seats and these crowded gal- 
leries have listened, to the extraordinary speech of the 
honorable senator from South Carolina, which has now 
run through two days. I must say, sir, that I have 
listened to that speech with painful and sad emotions. 
A senator of a sovereign State, more than twenty days 
ago, was stricken senseless to the floor for words spoken 
in debate. For more than three weeks he has been 
confined to his room upon a bed of weakness and of 
pain. The moral sentiment of the country has been 
outraged, grossly outraged, by this wanton assault, in the 
person of a senator, on the freedom of debate. The in- 
telligence of this transaction has flown over the land, and 
is now flying abroad over the civilized world ; and where- 
ever Christianity has a foothold, or civilization a resting- 
place, that act will meet the stern condemnation of man- 
kind. 

" Intelligence comes to us, Mr. President, that a civil 
war is raging beyond the Mississippi ; intelligence also 
comes to us, that, upon the shores of the Pacific, lynch law 
is again organized ; and the telegraph brings us news 
of assaults and murders around the ballot-boxes of New 
Orleans, growing out of differences of opinion and of 
interests. Can we be surprised, sir, that these scenes, 
which are disgracing tlie character of our country and 
our age, are rife, when a venerable senator — one of tlie 
oldest members of tlie Senate, and chairman of its Judi- 
ciary Committee — occupies four hours of the important 



REPCY TO 'MR. BUTLER. 191 

time of the Senate in vindication of and apology for an 
assault unparalleled in the history of the country ? If 
lawless violence here in this chamber, upon the person 
of a senator, can find vindication, if this outrage upon 
the freedom of debate finds apology, from a veteran 
senator, why may not violent counsels elsewhere go un- 
rebukcd ? 

" The senator from South Carohna, through this debate, 
has taken occasion to apply to Mr. Sumner, to his speech, 
to all that concerns him, all the epithets " — 

Mr. Butler. — "I used criticism, but not epithets." 
Mr. Wilson. — " Well, sir, I accept the senator's 
word, and I say ' criticism.' But, I say, in his criticism 
he used every word that I can conceive a fertile imagi- 
nation could invent, or a malignant passion suggest. He 
has taken his full revenge here on the floor of the Senate 

— here in debate — for the remarks made by my colleague. 
I do not take any exception to this mode. This is the way 
ii> which the speech of my colleague should have been met, 

— not by blows, not by an assault. 

" The senator tells us that this is not, in his opinion, an 
assault upon the constitutional. rights of a member of the 
Senate. He tells us that a member cannot be permitted 
to print, and send abroad over the world, with impunity, 
his opinions ; but that he is liable to have them questioned 
in a judicial tribunah Well, sir, if this be so, — he is a 
lawyer ; I am not, — I accept his view ; and I ask, Why not 
have tested Mr. Sumner's speech in a judicial tribunal, 
and let that tribunal have settled the question whether Mr. 
Sumner uttered a libel or not ? Why was It necessary, 
why did the ' chivalry ' of South Carolina require, that for 
words uttered on this floor, under the solemn guaranties 
of constitutional law, a senator should be met here by 



192 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

violence ? Why appeal from the floor of the Senate, from 
a judicial tribunal, to the bludgeon ? I put the question 
to the senator, to the ' chivalry ' of South Carolina, ay, to 
' the gallant set,' to use the senator's own words, of ' Ninety- 
six,' why was it necessary to substitute the bludgeon for the 
judicial tribunal ? 

" The senator complained of Mr. Sumner for quoting 
the Constitution of South Carolina ; and he asserted over 
and over again, and he winds up his speech by the decla- 
ration, that the quotation made is not in the Constitution. 
After making that declaration, he read the Constitution, 
and read the identical quotation. Mr. Sumner asserted 
what is in the Constitution ; but there is an addition to it 
which he did not quote. The senator might have com- 
plained because he did not quote it ; but the portion not 
quoted carries out only the letter and the spirit of the por- 
tion quoted. To be a member of the House of Represen- 
tatives of South Carolina, it is necessary to own a certain 
number of acres of land and ten slaves, or seven- hundrfd 
and fifty dollars of real estate free of debt. The senator 
declared with great emphasis — and I saw nods. Demo- 
cratic nods, all around the Senate — that 'a man who was 
not worth that amount of money was not fit to be a repre- 
sentative.' That may be good Democratic doctrine, — it 
comes from a Democratic senator of the Democratic State 
of South Carolina, and received Democratic nods and 
Democratic smiles, — but it is not in harmony with the 
democratic ideas of the American people. 

" The charge made by Mr. Sumner was, that South 
Carolina was nominally republican, but in reality had 
aristocratic features in her constitution. Well, sir, is not 
this charge true ? To be a member of the House of 
Representatives of South Carolina, the candidate must 



REPLY TO Hm. BUTLEK. 193 

own ten men, — yes, sir, ten men, — five hundred acres of 
land, or liave seven hundred and fifty dollars of real estate 
free of debt ; and, to be a member of the Senate, double is 
required. This legislature, havino; these personal qualifi- 
cations, placing them in the rank of a privileged few, is 
elected upon a representative basis as unequal as the rot- 
ten-borough system of England in its most rotten days. 
That is not all. This legislature elects the governor of 
South Carolina and the presidential electors. The people 
have the privilege of voting for men with these qualifica- 
tions upon this basis ; and they select their governor for 
them, and choose the presidential electors for them. The 
privileged few govern : the many have the privilege of 
being governed by them. 

" Sir, I have no disposition to assail South Carolina. God 
knows that I would peril my life in defence of any State 
of this Union if assailed by a foreign foe. I have voted, 
and I will continue to vote while I have a scat on this 
floor, as cheerfully for appropriations, or for any thing that 
can benefit South Carolina or any other State of this 
Union, as for my own Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
South Carolina is a part of my country. Slaveholders are 
not the tenth part of her population : there is somebody 
Gise there besides slaveholders. I am opposed to its system 
of slavery, to its aristocratic inequalities, and I shall con- 
tinue to be opposed to them ; but it is a sovereign State of 
this Union, — a part of my country, — and I have no dis- 
position to do injustice to it. 

■" Sir, the senator from South Carolina has under- 
taken to assure the Senate and the country to-day that 
ho is not the aggressor. I tell him that Mr. Sumner 
was not the aggressor ; that the senator from South 
Carolina was the aggressor. I will prove this declara- 
17 



194 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tioii to be true beyond all question. Mr. Sumner is not 
a man who desires to be aggressive towards any one. 
He came into the Senate ' a representative man.' Ilis 
opinions were known to the country. He came here 
knowing that there were but few in this body who could 
sympathize with him. He was reserved and cautious. 
For eight months here he made no speeches upon any 
question that could excite the animadversion even of the 
sensitive senator from South Carolina. He made a brief 
speech in favor of the system of granting lands for con- 
structing railways in the new States, which the people 
of those States justly applauded ; and I will undertake 
to say that he stated the whole question briefly, fully, 
and powerfully. He also made a brief speech welcom- 
ing Kossuth to the United States. But, beyond the pres- 
entation of a petition, he took no steps to press his earnest 
convictions upon the Senate ; nor did he say any thing 
which could by possibility disturb the most excitable 
senator. 

" On the twenty-eighth day of July, 1852, after being in 
this body eight months, Mr. Sumner introduced a propo- 
sition to repeal the Fugitive-slave Act. Mr. Sumner and 
his constituents believed that act to be not only a viola- 
tion of the Constitution of the United States and a viola- 
tion of all the safeguards of the common law which have 
been garnered up for centuries to protect the rights of 
the people, but at war with Christianity, humanity, and 
human nature, — an enactment that is bringing upon this 
republic the indignant scorn of the Christian and civil- 
ized world. With these convictions he proposed to re- 
peal that act, as he had a right to propose. He had 
made no speech. He rose and asked the Senate to give 
him the privilege of making a speech. ' Strike, but 



REPLY TO ME. BUTLER. 195 

hear,' said he, using a quotation. I do not know that 
he gave the autliority for it. Perhaps the senator from 
South Carolina will criticise it as a plagiarism, as he 
has criticised another application of a classical passage. 
Mr. Siiraner asked the privilege of addressing the Senate. 
The senator from South Carolina, who now tells us that 
ho had been his friend, an old and veteran senator here, 
instead of feeling that Mr. Sumner was a member stand- 
ing almost alone, with only the senator from New York 
(Mr. Seward), the senator from New Hampshire (Mr. 
Hale), and Gov. Chase of Ohio, in sympathy with him, 
objected to his being heard. He asked Mr. Sumner 
tauntingly if he wished to make an ' oratorical display,' 
and talked about 'playing the orator' and 'the part 
of a parliamentary rhetorician.' These words, in their 
scope and in their character, were calculated to wound 
the sensibilities of a new member, and perhaps bring 
upon him what is often brought on a member who main- 
tains here the great doctrines of Liberty and Christianity, 
— the sneer and the laugh under which men sometimes 
shrink. 

" Thus was Mr. Summer, hefore he had ever uttered a 
word on the subject of slavery here, arraigned by the 
senator from South Carolina, not for what he ever had 
said, but for what he intended to say ; and the senator 
announced that he must oppose his speaking, because he 
would attack South Carolina. Mr. Sumner quietly said 
that he had no such purpose ; but the senator did not 
wish to allow him to ' make the Senate the vehicle of 
communication for his speech throughout the United 
States to wash deeper and deeper the channel through 
which flow the angry waters of agitation.' 

" Now, I charge here on the floor of the Senate, and 



196 LIFE OF HENHY WILSON. 

before the country, that the senator from South Carolina 
was the aggressor ; that he arraigned, in language which 
.no man can defend, ray colleague before he ever uttered 
a word on this subject on the floor of the Senate, and in 
the face of his express disclaimer that he had no purpose 
of alluding to Soutli Carolina. This was the beginning." 

After citing other instances of personal insult and 
abuse with which Mr. Butler sought to blacken Mr. 
Sumner, Mr. Wilson says, — 

" He again talks about ' sickly sentimentality ; ' and he 
charges that this ' sickly sentimentality now governs the 
councils of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.' Yes, 
sir, the senator from South Carolina makes five distinct 
assaults upon Massachusetts. Massachusetts councils 
governed by sickly sentimentality ! Sir, Massachusetts 
stands to-day where she stood wiien tlie little squad as- 
sembled on the 19th of April, 1775, to fire the first gun 
of the Revolution. The sentiments that brouglit those 
humble men to the little green at Lexington, and to the 
bridge at Concord ; which carried them up the slope of 
Bunker Hill ; and wliicli drove forth the British troops 
from Boston, never again to press the soil of Massachu- 
setts, — that sentiment still governs the councils of Mas- 
sachusetts, and rules in the hearts of her people. The 
feeling which governed the men of that glorious epoch 
of our history is the feeling of the men of Massachusetts 
of to-day. 

" Those sentiments of liberty and patriotism have pen- 
etrated the hearts of the whole population of that Com- 
monwealth. Sir, in that State, every man, no matter 
what blood runs in his veins, or what may be the color 
of his skin, stands up before the law the peer of tlie 
proudest that treads her soil. This is the sentiment of 



REPLY TO MR. BUTLER. 197 

the people of Massaohusetts. lu equality before the law 
they find their strength. They know this to be right if 
Christianity is true, and they will maintain it in the 
future as they have in the past ; and the civilized world, 
the coming generations, those who are hereafter to give 
law to the universe, will pronounce that in this contest 
Massachusetts is right, inflexibly right, and South Caro- 
lina and the senator from South Carolina wrong. The 
latter are maintaining the odious relics of a barbarous 
age and civilization, — not the civilization of the New 
Testament, not the civilization that is now blessing and 
adorning the best portions of the world. 

" ' We cannot be hurt by attempted assassination ! ' ex- 
claims the senator from South Carolina. 

"Attempted assassination? 

" It ill becomes the senator from South Carolina to use 
these words in connection with Massacliusetts or the 
North. The arms of Massachusetts are Freedom, Justice, 
Truth. Strong in these, she is not driven to the ne- 
cessity of resorting to ' attempted assassination ' either 
in or out of the Senate. 

" But the whole story is not yet told. I wish to refer to 
another assault made by the senator, which I witnessed 
myself a few days after I took a seat in this body. On 
the 2od of February, 1855, on one of the last days of 
tlie last session, to the bill introduced by the senator 
from Connecticut (Mr. Toucey) Mr. Summer moved an 
amendment providing for the repeal of the Fugitive- 
slave Act. He made some remarks in support of that 
proposition. The senator from South Carolina rose and 
interrupted him, saying, ' I would ask him one question, 
whicli he perhaps will not answer honestly.'' Mr. Sum- 
ner said, ' I will answer any question.' The senator went 



198 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

on to ask questions, and received his answers ; and then 
he said, speakin<^ of Mr. Sumner, ' I know he is not a 
tactician, and I shall not take advantage of the infirm- 
ity of a man who does not know half his time exactly 
what he is about.' This is indeed extraordinary lan- 
guage for the senator from South Carolina to apply to 
the senator from Massachusetts. I witnessed that scene. 
I then deemed the language insulting : the manner was 
more so. I liold in my hands the remarks of ' The Louis- 
ville Journal,' a Southern press, upon this scene. I shall 
not read them to the Senate ; for I do not wish to present 
any thing whicii the senator may even deem offensive. 
I will say, however, that his language and his deport- 
ment to my colleague on that occasion were aggressive 
and overbearing in the extreme. And this is the senator 
who never makes assaults ! But, not content with as- 
saulting Mr. Sumner, he winds up his speech by a taunt 
at ' Boston philaiithropy.' Surely no person ever scat- 
tered assault more freely. 

" Thus has Mr. Sumner been, by the senator from 
South Carolina, systematically assailed in this body from 
the 28th of July, 1852, up to the present time, — a 
period of nearly four years. He has applied to my col- 
league every expression calculated to wound the sensi- 
bilities of an honorable man, and to draw down upon him 
sneers, obloquy, and hatred, in and out of the Senate. 
In my place here, I now pronounce these continued 
assaults upon my colleague unparalleled in the history 
of the Senate. 

" I come now to speak for one moment of the late 
speech of my colleague, which is the alleged cause of the 
recent assault upon him, and which the senator from 
South Carolina has condemned so abundantly. That 



REPLY TO MR. BUTLER. 109 

speech, — a thorough and fearless exposition of what 
Mr. Sumner entitled the ' Crime against Kansas/ — from 
beginning to end, is marked by entire plainness. Things 
are called by their right names. The usurpation in 
Kansas is exposed, and also the apologies for it, succes- 
sively. No words were spared which seemed necessary 
to the exhibition. In arraigning the crime, it was 
natural to speak of those who sustained it. Accordingly, 
the administration is constantly held up to condemna- 
tion. Various senators who have vindicated this crime 
are at once answered and condemned. Among these 
are the senator from South Carolina, the senator from 
Illinois (Mr. Douglas), the senator from Virginia (Mr. 
Mason), and the senator from Missouri (Mr. Geyer). 
The senator from South Carolina now complains of Mr. 
Sumner's speech. Surely it is difficult to see on what 
ground that senator can make any such complaint. The 
speech was indeed severe, — severe as truth, — but in all 
respects parliamentary. It is true that it handles the 
senator from South Carolina freely ; but that senator had 
spoken repeatedly in the course of the Kansas debate, 
once at length and elaborately, and at other times more 
briefly, foisting himself into the speeches of other sena- 
tors, and identifying himself completely with the crime 
which my colleague felt it his duty to arraign. It was 
natural, therefore, that his course in the debate, and 
his position, should be particularly considered. And in 
this work Mr. Sumner had no reason to hold back, when 
he thought of the constant and systematic and ruthless 
attacks, which, utterly without cause, he had received 
from that senator. The only objection which the senator 
from South Carolina can reasonably make to Mr. Sumner 
is that he struck a strong blow. 



200 Lli^E OF HENRY WILSON. 

" The senator complains that tlie speech was printed 
before it was delivered. Here, again, is his accustomed 
inaccuracy. It is true that it was in the printers' hands, 
and was mainly in type; but it received additions and 
revisions after its delivery, and was not put to press till 
then. Away with this petty objection ! The senator 
says that twenty thousand copies have gone to England. 
Here, again, is his accustomed inaccuracy. If they have 
gone, it is without Mr. Sumner's agency. But tlie 
senator foresees the truth. Sir, that speech will go to 
England ; it will go to the continent of Europe ; it has 
gone over the country, and has been read by the Ameri- 
can people as no speech ever delivered in this body was 
read before. Tliat speech will go down to coming ages. 
Whatever men may say of its sentiments, — and coming 
ages will indorse them, — it will be placed among the 
ablest parliamentary efiforts of our own age, or of any 
age. 

" The senator from South Carolina tells us that the 
speech is to be condemned ; and he quotes the venerable 
and distinguished senator from Michigan (Mr. Cass). I 
do not know what Mr. Sumner could stand. The^ sena- 
tor says he could not stand the censure of the senator 
from Michigan. I could; and I believe there are a great 
many in this country whose powers of endurance are as 
great as my own. I have great respect for that vener- 
able senator ; but the opinions of no senator here are 
potential in the country. This is a Senate of equals. 
The judgment of the country is to be made up on the 
records formed here. The opinions of the senator from 
Michigan, and of other senators here, are to go into the 
record, and will receive the verdict of the people. By 
that I am willing to stand. 



REPLY TO MR. BUTLER. 201 

" The senator from Soiitli Carolina tells us that the 
speech is to be condemned. It has gone out to the 
country. It has been printed by the million. II has 
been scattered broadcast amongst seventeen millions of 
Northern freemen who can read and write. The senator 
condemns it ; South Carolina condemns it. But South 
Carolina is only a part of this Confederacy, and but a 
part of the Christian and civilized world. South Caro- 
lina makes rice and cotton ; but South Carolina contrib- 
utes little to make up the judgment of the Christian 
and civilized world. I value her rice and cotton more 
than I do her opinions on questions of scholarship and 
eloquence, of patriotism or of liberty. 

" Mr. President, I have no desire to assail the senator 
from South Carolina, or any other senator in this body ; 
but I wish to say now, that we have had quite enough of 
this asserted superiority, social and political. We were 
told some time ago by the senator from Alabama (Mr. 
Clay), that those of us who entertained certain senti- 
ments fawned upon him and other Southern men if they 
permitted us to associate with them. This is strange 
language to be used in this body. I never fawned upon 
that senator. I never sought his acquaintance ; and I do 
not know that I should feel myself honored if I had it. 
I treat him ^s an equal here ; I wish always to treat him 
respectfully : but, when he tells me or my friends that we 
fawn upon him or his associates, I say to him that I have 
never sought, and never shall seek, any other acquaint- 
ance than what official intercourse requires with a man 
who declared on the floor of the Senate that he would do 
what Henry Clay once said ' no gentleman would do,' — 
hunt a fugitive slave. 

" The senator from Virginia, not now in his seat (Mr. 



202 LIFE OF HEKRY WILSOK. 

Mason), when Mr. Sumner closed his speech, saw fit to 
tell the Senate that his hands would be soiled by contact 
with ours. The senator is not here : I wish he were. I 
have simply to say that I know nothing in that senator, 
moral, intellectual, or physical, which entitles him to use 
such language towards members of the Senate, or any 
•portion of God's creation. I know nothing in the State 
from which he comes, rich as it is in the history of the 
past, that entitles him to speak in such a manner. I am 
not here to assail Virginia : God knows I have not a 
feeling in my heart against her or against her public men. 
But I do say, it is time that these arrogant assumptions 
ceased here. This is no place for assumed social supe- 
riority, as though certain senators held the keys of culti- 
vated and refined society. Sir, they do not hold the 
keys, and they shall not hold over me the plantation- 
whip. 

" I wish always to speak kindly towards every man in 
this body. Since I came here, I have never asked an 
introduction to a Southern member of the Senate ; not 
because I have any feelings against them (for God knows 
I have not) ; but I knew that they believed I held opinions 
hostile to their interests, and I supposed they would not 
desire my society. I have never wished to obtrude my- 
self on their society, so that certain senators could do 
with me as they have boasted they did with others, — 
refuse to receive their advances, or refuse to recognize 
them on the floor of the Senate. Sir, there is not a 
cooly in the guano islands of Peru who does not think 
the Celestial Empire the whole universe. There are a 
great many men, who have swung the whip over the plan- 
tation, who think thoy not only rule the plantation, but 
make up the judgment of the world, and hold the keys 



REPLY TO MB. BUTLER. 203 

not only to political power, as they have done in this 
country, but to social life. 

" The senator from- South Carolina assails the reso- 
lutions of my State with his accustomed looseness, as 
springing from ignorance, passion, prejudice, excitement. 
Sir, the testimony before the House committee sustains 
all that is contained in those resolutions. I know Mas- 
sachusetts ; and I can tell him, that, of the twelve hun- 
dred thousand people of Massachusetts, you cannot find 
in the State one thousand, administration office-holders 
included, who do not look with loathing and execra- 
tion upon the outrage on the person of their senator and 
the lionor of their State. The sentiment of Massacl'm- 
setts, of New England, of the North, approaches unani- 
mity. Massachusetts has spoken her opinions. The 
senator is welcome to assail them, if he chooses ; but 
they are on the record. They are made up by the verdict 
of her people ; and they understand the question ; and 
from their verdict there is no appeal." 

After this speech of Mr. Wilson, Mr. Butler indulged 
in some discursive remarks, and ended by saying, — 

" As I suppose the senator (Mr. Wilson) is to be con- 
sidered, in some sense, the historian of his State, I desire 
to ask him how many battles were fought in Massachu- 
setts during the Revolutionary war." 

Mr. Wilson. — "I will answer the senator. The bat- 
tles fought in Massachusetts during the Revolution were 
few, because they were not necessary. Our Massachu- 
setts men met the enemy at Lexington, at Concord 
Bridge, at Bunker Hill, and on the heights of Dorchester. 
They would have met them on every spot in Massachu- 
setts ; but the enemy took good care right early to get 
and keep out of that State, 



204 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" The senator said yesterday, as I understood him, that 
' South Carolina had shed hogsheads of blood where 
Massachusetts had shed gallons ' daring the Revolution." 

Mr. Butler. — " On the battle-fields of the two States." 

Mr. Wilson. — "I heard no such limitation. I under- 
stood the senator to mean that South Carolina had con- 
ti-ibuted hogsheads of the blood of her sons, where Massa- 
chusetts had only contributed gallons, to the Revolution. 
Sir, South Carolina furnished five thousand five hundred 
soldiers ; Massachusetts, sixty-nine thousand ; and they 
drove the enemy, and followed the enemy, and met the 
enemy on the battle-fields of the Revolution, from the 
northern to the southern boundaries of the republic, from 
the St. Lawrence to the .St. Mary's. There were but few 
battles fought on the soil of Massachusetts, for the reason 
that the enemy thought it was safer to leave Massa- 
chusetts, and go to South Carolina. The British army 
thought it was not safe to be very near the battle-fields of 
Concord, of Lexington, and of Bunker Hill ; and it left 
Massachusetts, and took good care to keep out of a Com- 
monwealth where friends always find a welcome, and foes 
are apt to find a grave. 

" During the Revolution, a portion of the people of 
South Carolina — the Gadsdens, the Rutledges, the Lau- 
renses, the Sumters, the Marions — made as great sacri- 
fices for the cause of independence as any patriots in any 
portion of the land ; but the fact cannot be denied, — and 
all these patriots, including even Marion, convict South 
Carolina of the fact, — that she had a large lot of Tories. 
Tliere was a civil war in that State ; and, more than that, 
thousands and tens of thousands of her sons souglit ])ro- 
tectiou under the British flag. When the army of Greene 
was starving, the British army in Charleston was receiving 



REPLY TO MR. BUTLER. 205 

all that the fertile valleys of South Carolina could pro- 
duce, carry into Charleston, and exchange for British 
gold. When Greene and his patriot army wanted oxen 
and horses to carry supplies, they were hustled off into 
the forest by people who had, to quote the words of 
Gen. Greene to Gen. Barnwell, ' far greater attachment to 
their interests than zeal for the service of their country.' " 

Mr. Butler. — "Let me ask the gentleman who fed 
Greene's army at that time," 

Mr. Wilson. — '"Who fed Greene's army?' That 
army was hardly fed at all : at any rate, it was but poorly 
fed, and scantily clothed. I apprehend, sir, that Greene's 
army — like the schoolboy's whistle, that whistled itself — 
fed itself. 

" I have no disposition to assail the senator's State. I 
should blush if I could say aught against the patriots of 
South Carolina, or even cease to feel gratitude for their 
efforts, their prompt response to the patriots of my own 
State, in the early days of the Revolution. But, sir, Gads- 
den, Burke, Marion, Ramsay, Barnwell, and the patriots 
of that period, have borne this evidence, — that South Car- 
olina was weakened in that contest by the existence of 
slavery. That was what Mr. Sumner charged, and, on a 
former occasion, demonstrated ; and tliat, I take it, no 
man here or elsewhere can deny. 

" The senator tells us that he has complimented the 
battle-fields of Massachusetts, — the fields of Lexington, 
Concord, and Bunker Hill. That senator, and the con- 
stituents of that senator, can stand upon those sacred 
spots, and breathe something of the spirit of liberty that 
makes them immortal ; he can utter his sentiments, — 
sentiments so little in harmony with the gallant dead 
that sleep beneath those hallowed sods, or the living who 

18 



206 LIFE OF HENRY WrLSOK. 

now guard them under the protection of law and a pub- 
lic sentiment nurtured and sustained by free speech. I 
should be proud to tread the battle-fields of South Caro- 
lina, hallowed by patriot blood. Yes, sir, it would afford 
me intense gratification to stand upon those stricken 
fields, so dear to every true American heart ; but I do 
not know that I could do so without suppressing those 
cherished sentiments of liberty, for the vindication of 
which patriot blood was poured out at Camden, Guilford, 
Eutaw, and Hobkirk Hill. 

" But all these allusions and reflections upon the his- 
tory of the past afford me no gratification. I say to the 
senator from South Carolina, that he and I and all of 
us had far better turn from the past, cease to reflect 
upon the services of our States in the Revolutionary era, 
and deal with the living questions which we must meet 
in this age, — questions that have great issues, involving 
the interests of our common country and the rights of 
human nature. He and I and all of us here ought to 
strive to settle these great issues for the good of our com- 
mon country, and the whole people of the country, bond 
and free." 

Many letters of congratulation were received after the 
delivery of this speech, and among them one from the 
patriotic poet J. G. Whittier, in which he says, — 

" Tliy reply to Butler after the outrage upon our noble 
friend Sumner was eminently ' the right word in the 
right place.' " 

The departure of Mr. Sumner from the Senate (from 
which he was absent several years) left a heavier burden 
upon Mr. Wilson ; yet with dauntless vigor he pressed 
on, meeting the Southern members with a clear head and 
lion heart on the great questions then at issue, and repel- 



KANSAS. 207 

ling by unanswerable arguments the assaults upon the 
North. 

He would not interfere with slavery in the Southern 
States ; but with invincible determination he stood op- 
posed to its extension over the Tei'ritories of the West, 
and to the doctrine of the " squatter sovereignty " ad- 
vanced by Mr. Douglas, and maintained by the pro- 
slavery propagandists. 

In a noble speech, July 9, on a report for printing twen- 
ty tliousand extra copies of the bill to enable Jvansas to 
form a constitution, he said, — 

" Sir, for framing this constitution, this free consti- 
tution, for organizing under it a State government, and 
choosing senators to urge its adoption here, the people of 
Kansas have been denounced as ' traitors ' by the senator 
from Illinois and those who follow his lead in and out of 
the Senate. This chamber has rung with your words of 
rebuke, denunciation, and reproof of the people of Kansas, 
whose only crime is devotion to freedom, resistance to 
the monstrous tyranny of usurped power. I charge upon 
the administration the crime of abandoning the people of 
Kansas to the merciless rule of their conquerors. Ay, 
sir, I go farther, and I cliarge upon the administration 
and upon its supporters here the crime of aiding and 
abetting their conquerors in their unhallowed deeds. 

" Mr. President, the administration and its supporters — 
the senators from Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Georgia — 
snatched Kansas from the exclusive possession of the free 
laboring-men of the republic, North and South, and flung 
it open to the footprints of the slave and his master. You 
deluded the people with the idea of popular sovereignty : 
you have seen that sovereignty cloven down by invading 
hordes of armed men ; you have seen the people robbed 



208 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of their rights, and oppressed ; you have seen them strug- 
gle to recover their lost rights ; and in all their wrongs 
and struggles you have hasely abandoned them ; ay, you 
have joined their oppressors, and aided them in the enforce- 
ment of their usurped powers and unhallowed decrees. 
Sir, I hold the administration, I hold the majority liere, 
I hold the Democratic party, up to the stern verdict of the 
civilized world for this abandonment of the people of 
Kansas, this collusion with their oppressors. 

" The people of Kansas, Mr. President, have not only 
been defrauded of their legal and political rights, op- 
pressed by laws imposed upon them by foreign force, and 
denied all redress, but thej have been invaded, hunted 
down, by armed bands of thieving marauders, their dwell- 
ings burned, their property stolen, and many of their 
number treated with personal violence, and some of them 
brutally murdered. Dwellings have been battered with 
cannon, houses have been fired, presses destroyed, oxen,, 
horses, and other property, stolen, and men foully mur- 
dered ; and the administration and its officials in the 
Territory have no time to spare from the infamous work 
of subduing the friends of free Kansas for the arrest and 
punishment of the men who have illumined the midnight 
skies with the lurid light of sacked and burning dwellings 
of the people, — men who have inaugurated the era of 
robbery, violence, and murder." 

In enumerating the outrages committed upon the 
peaceable citizens of Kansas, he held up a musket-ball to 
the Senate, and touchingly said, — 

" The ball I hold in my hand was shot through a boy 
eighteen years old, the son of a widow. On his way 
home from Westport, Mo., he was stopped by these gentry 
wlio keep guard over the passes into tlie Territory, and 



NO SUPPLIES FOR SUBJUGATING KANSAS. 209 

required to give up what lie had. lie gave up his arms. 
They then required him to give up his horse ; but he told 
them he would not do it. For that he was shot down ; 
and this ball was taken out of his lifeless body by a friend 
of mine." 

In an effective speech in the Senate, Aug. 27, against 
sending military supplies to subjugate freemen in Kansas, 
he said, — 

" Let the army be disbanded forever rather than enforce 
those infamous enactments or uphold the usurpation in 
Kansas. Almost every township of the North has furnished 
actual settlers to Kansas. Are senators on the other side 
infatuated enough to believe that the people will sustain 
them in their career of madness in forcing down the 
throats of their kindred and friends, with the sabre and 
bayonet, these enactments ? When the brutal boast of 
the British officer, that he would cram the stamps down 
the throats of our fathers with the hilt of his sword, is 
applauded by their descendants, then, and not till then, 
will the people of the free States applaud your efforts to 
cram these unchristian, inhuman, and fiendish laws down 
the throats of their brethren in distant Kansas with the 
sabre of the dragoon, — enactments which the senator 
from Delaware (Mr. Clayton) declares would send even 
John C. Calhoun to the penitentiary." 



CHAPTER XI. 

NOMINATION OF MR. FREMONT. NORTHERN SENTIMENT. 

DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. VISIT TO CAN- 
ADA. CONGRESSIONAL CAREER, 1857. LETTERS. 



Philadelphia Convention, 1856. — Platform. — The Campaign. — Sons of New 
Hampshire. — South for the Dissolution of the Union. — Kansas and Nebras- 
ka Bill. — Speech on the Eepublican Party. — Opening of the Grand-Trunk 
Railroad. — Speech at Montreal. — Activity in the United-States Senate. — 
Measures proposed. — Speech on the Lecompton Constitution. — Letter from 
the Hon. George T. Bigelow ; also from the Hon. G. R. Russell. 



JOHN C. FREMONT was nominated as the Republi- 
can candidate for president in the convention held at 
Philadelphia, June 17, 1856, on a ph\tform opposing the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the extension of 
slavery into the free Territories, the policy of the pro- 
slavery administration of Mr. Pierce, and in favor of a 
railroad to the Pacific, and the admission of Kansas as 
a free State into the Union. Mr. Wilson, though not a 
delegate, was present at the convention, where he was 
most cordially received, and where he brought forward 
Mr. Dayton for vice-president. On his return from Con- 
gress, he went into the presidential contest with his usual 
ardor, delivering powerful speeches before immense 
audiences, in which he rebuked the aggressive spirit 
of the South and the pusillanimity of the administra- 

210 



NORTHERN SENTEMENT. 211 

tion, and developed the principles of the Republican 
party. 

In a festival of the Sons of New Hampshire, held at 
Natick Aug. 18, he was greeted with tremendous ap- 
plause, and his senatorial course commended. The in- 
dignity cast on Massachusetts by the dastardly assault on 
Mr. Sumner, and the arrogance of the border ruffians, 
were converting rapidly her conservatives to Republi- 
canism ; and great enthusiasm for the liberal candidates 
was manifested, especially by the working-people. 

It was generally admitted that Mr. Fremont would be 
elected ; and mutterings were heard, that, in such event, 
the South would dissolve the Union. Senator Butler 
said, " If he should be chosen, I shall advise my legisla- 
ture to go at the tap of the drum ; " and Mr. Toombs of 
Georgia, that " the Union would be dissolved, and ought 
to be dissolved." 

But the action of the third party in the nomination of 
Mr. Fillmore brought James Buchanan into the execu- 
tive chair. The large vote cast, however, for the Republi- 
can candidate, revealed the strength of the party, the 
sentiment of the North, and abundantly repaid the exer- 
tion which the contest cost. 

On entering Congress in December, Mr. Wilson intro- 
duced a bill to organize the Territory of Kansas and 
Nebraska on the 16th inst. ; and on the 19th made a 
speech of masterly ability in defence of the acts and 
principles of his organization, which had an immense cir- 
culation through the country, and fully sustained his 
reputation as an orator, a statistician, and a statesman. 
In it he said, — 

" On the 4th of November last, more than thirteen 
hundred thousand men, intelligent, patriotic, liberty- 



212 LIFE OF HENKY WILSON. 

loving, law-abiding citizens of New England, the great 
Central States, and of the Nortli-west, holding with our 
republican fathers that all men are created equal, and 
have an inalienable right to liberty ; that the Constitution 
of the United States was ordained and established to 
secure that inalienable right everywhere under its exclu- 
sive authority; denying ' the authority of Congress, of a 
Territorial legislature, of any individual, or association of 
individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Terri- 
tory of tlie United States while the present Constitution 
shall be maintained,' — pronounced through the ballot-box 
that ' the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign 
power over the Territories of the United States ; and that, 
in the exercise of this power, it is both tlie right and the 
duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those 
twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.' Believ- 
ing with Franlilin, that ' slavery is an atrocious debase- 
ment of humj^n nature ; ' with Adams, that ' consenting to 
slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust ; ' with Jefferson, 
that ' one hour of American slavery is fraught with more 
misery than ages of that which we rose in rebellion to 
oppose ; ' witli Madison, that ' slavery is a dreadful calam- 
ity,' — that ' imbecility is ever attendant upon a country 
filled with slaves ; ' with Monroe, that ' slavery has preyed 
on the vitals of the community in all the States where 
it has existed ; ' with Montesquieu, 'that even the very 
earth, which teems with profusion under the cultivat- 
ing hand of the free-born laborer, shrinks into barren- 
ness from the contaminating sweat of a slave,' — they 
pronounced their purpose to be to save Kansas, now in 
peril, and all the Territories of the republic, for the free 
laboring-men of the North and the South, their children, 
and their children's children, forever. 



DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 213 

" Accepting the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution of the United States as their political charts ; 
avowing their purposes to be to maintain the Constitu- 
tion, the Federal Union, and the rights of the States ; 
proclaiming everywhere their purpose not to make war 
upon the South, not to interfere with the legal and con- 
stitutional rights of the people of any of the States, — 
they gave their votes with the profoundest conviction that 
they were discharging the duties sanctioned by humanity, 
patriotipm, and religion." 

He thus denied the charges of the president : — 
" Assuming, Mr. President, that his policy has been 
sanctioned by the election, the president proceeds to 
accuse more than thirteen hundred thousand Ameri- 
can citizens of an attempt to organize a sectional party, 
and usurp the government of the country. He pro- 
ceeds to arraign more than thirteen hundred thousand 
citizens of the free North, and to charge them with 
forming associations of individuals, ' who, pretending to 
seek only to prevent the spread of slavery into the pres- 
ent or future inchoate States, are really inflamed with a 
desire to change the domestic institutions of existing 
States ; ' with seeking ' an object which they well know 
to be a revolutionary one ; ' with entering ' a path which 
leads nowhere, unless it be to civil war and disunion ; ' 
with being ' perfectly aware that the only path to the ac- 
complishment' of the change they seek 'is through burn- 
ing cities and ravaged fields and slaughtered populations ; ' 
with endeavoring 'to prepare the people of the United 
States for civil war, by doing every thing in their power to 
deprive the Constitution and the laws of moral authority, 
and to undermine the fabric of the Union by appeals to 
passion and sectional prejudice, by indoctrinating its peo- 



214 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

pie with reciprocal hatred, and by educating them to stand 
face to face as enemies.' 

" Sir, I deny each, every one, ay, all, of these charges. 
There is not the semblance of truth in them. If the 
serpent that stole into Eden, that beguiled our first mother, 

which the angels 

' Found 
Squat like a toad at the ear of Eve,' 

had glided into the executive mansion, that serpent could 
not have hissed into the president's ear words more skil- 
fully adapted to express the precise and exact opposite of 
truth. Sir, these accusations against as intelligent and 
patriotic men as ever rallied around the standard of Free- 
dom are untruthful and malignant, showing that the 
shafts hurled in the conflict through which we have just 
passed rankle in his bosom." 

Of the issues and the real agitator he said, — 
" Surely senators cannot be surprised at the discussion 
of questions so vast as those which grow out of the slavery 
of nearly four millions of men in America. American 
slavery, our connections with it, and our relations to it, 
and the obligations these connections and relations impose 
upon us as men, as citizens of the States and tlie United 
States, make up the overshadowing issues of the age in 
which we live. Philanthropists, who have sounded the 
depths and shoals of humanity ; scholars, who have laid 
under contribution the domain of matter and of mind, 
of philosophic inquiry and historical research ; statesmen, 
who are impressing their genius upon the institutions 
of their country and their age, — all are now illustrat- 
ing, by their genius, learning, and eloquence, the vast 
and complicated issues involved in the great problems we 
of this age, in America, are working out. The transcend- 



DEFENCE OP REPUBLICAN PARTY.. 215 

ent magnitude of the interests involved in the existence 
and expansion of the system of human bondage in Ameri- 
ca is arresting the attention of the people, and stirring 
the country to its profoundest depths. 

" The senator from Tennessee (Mr. Jones) quoted a 
remark of mine, to the effect that this agitation of the 
slavery question would never cease while the soil of • the 
republic should be trod by the foot of a slave. That sen- 
timent I repeat here to-day. I believe it. God is the great 
agitator. While his throne stands, agitation will go on 
until the foot of a slave shall not press the soil of the East- 
ern or Western continent." 

Of the Union sentiment of his party he remarked, — 
" Then we are charged in the message with having en- 
tered upon a path which has no possible outlet but dis- 
union. When the Republican party was organized, the 
avowal was made that the Union must be maintained. 
The declaration of Mr. Webster, ' Liberty and Union, 
now and forever, one and inseparable ; ' the declaration of 
Andrew Jackson, ' The Union must be preserved,' — were 
borne throughout the canvass on all our banners. In the 
public press, and before the people everywhere, the doc- 
trine was maintained that we were for the Union ; and if 
any men. North or South, laid their hands upon it, they 
should die, if we had the power, traitor deaths, and leave 
traitor names in the history of the republic." 

He thus rebuked the sneer of " bleeding Kansas : " — 
" Sir, the senator from Texas spoke sneeringly of 
' bleeding Kansas.' Throughout the canvass, our efforts 
in favor of making Kansas a free State, and protecting the 
legal rights of the people, were sneered at as ' shrieks for 
Freedom ' and for ' bleeding Kansas.' I remember that 
on the evening when the news came to New York that 



216 , LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Pennsylvania was carried, in October, tlie Empire Club 
came out with cannon, banners, and transparencies. The 
Five Points, where the waves of abolition fanaticism have 
never reached, — the inhabitants of that locality, like the 
people of the Lower Egypt of the West, stood fifty to one- 
by the Democracy ; the Five Points and the Sixth Ward 
were out ; and upon a transparency, borne through the 
streets of the great commercial capital of the Western 
world, was the picture of three scourged black men ; and 
on that transparency were the words, ' Bleeding Kansas.' 
I thought then that it was a degradation which had 
reached the profoundest depths of humiliation ; but even 
that degradation has been surpassed here in the national 
capital. In that procession which passed along these ave- 
nues but a few evenings before we came here — a proces- 
sion formed under the immediate eyes of the chiefs of the 
executive departments of the government, and filled with 
their retainers, led by government officials — was borne 
upon a transparency the words, ' Sumner and Kansas, — 
let them bleed ! ' 

" The senator from Texas may sneer, and otliers may 
sneer, at ' bleeding Kansas ; ' but I tell him one thing, — 
that the next day at ten o'clock, after the presidential 
election, there was an assemblage of men, continuing 
through two days, in the city of Boston, from several 
States, and from ' bleeding Kansas,' — men, some of whom 
you guarded through tlie summer months for treason, — 
assembled together to take measures to save Kansas ; and 
I assure that senator, and others who may think this 
struggle for Kansas is ended with the election, that more 
money has been contributed since that election than dur- 
ing any three months of the whole controversy. Thou- 
sands of garments have been sent to clothe that suffering 



DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 217 

people. We have resolved, — and we mean to keep that 
resolution, — that if by any lawful effort, any personal 
sacrifice, Kansas can be saved to Freedom, it shall be 
saved in spite of your present administration, or any 
thing that your incoming administration can do." 

Respecting freedom of speech, he spoke as follows : — 
" But we are charged by the president with inculcating 
a spirit which would lead the people of the North and 
South to stand face to face as enemies. Sir, I repel that 
charge as iitterly and wholly false. There is no such 
feeling in the Northern States towards the people of the 
South. But a few months ago, the senator from Georgia 
(Mr. Toombs), whose views upon this question of slavery 
are known to be extremely ultra, went to the city of Bos- 
ton, and lectured before one of the most intelligent audi- 
ences that ever assembled in that section of our country. 
He was received by all with that courtesy and that kind- 
ness of feeling which every Southern man who visits that 
section receives, and to which they bear testimony. Mr. 
Benton is in the North now, lecturing in favor of the 
Union, — ' carrying coals to Newcastle.' He is every- 
wliere sought after, everywhere listened to, everywhere 
treated kindly, although he holds views in regard to sla- 
very that not one man in ten thousand in that section 
approves. 

" Can we utter in the South the words which the 
fathers of the South taught us ? Could the senator from 
New York (Mr. Fish), whose father fought at Yorktown, 
go to that field, and utter the sentiments which were upon 
the lips of all the great men of Virginia when Cornwallis 
surrendered ? Could the senators from New Hampshire 
stand on that spot once baptized by the blood of Alexan- 
cler Scammell, and there utter the sentiments of Henry, 



218 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

or of Jefifersou, or of Mason? Could one of us go down 
to Mount Vernon, which slavery has converted into a sort 
of jnngie, and there repeat the words of Washington, — 
' No man desires more earnestly than I do to see slavery 
abolished : there is only one proper way to do it, and 
that is by legislative action ; and for that my vote shall 
never be wanting ' ? Could we go to Monticello, could 
we stand by the graves of Jefferson, of Madison, of Henry, 
of the great men of Virginia, and utter the sublime 
thoughts which they uttered for the liberty of the bond- 
men ? Could we stand by the grave of Henry Clay, and 
declare, as he declared, slavery to be ' a curse,' ' a wrong,' 
a ' grievous wrong to the slave, that no contingency could 
make right 'V 

" In the slaveholding States, free speech and a free press 
are known only in theory. A slaveholding, slavery-ex- 
tending Democracy has established a relentless despotism. 
We invited you of the South to meet us in national con- 
vention to restore the government to the policy of the 
fathers. Mr. Underwood of Virginia did go to Philadel- 
phia. He united with us in our declaration of principles ; 
he united with us in the nomination of John C. Fremont: 
and for this offence he was banished from Virginia. He 
returned a few days since, and was notified, that, if he 
remained, he must run the risk of being dealt with by an 
indignant community. He has left there, and I believe is 
now here in the city of Washington. When the Fremont 
flag was raised in Norfolk, the civil authorities took it 
down. Mr. Stannard, a merchant of Norfolk, a native of 
Connecticut, went up to the ballot-box, and quietly handed 
in his vote for Fremont. It was handed back to him. 
They would not receive it. He was driven from the polls, 
and compelled to hide himself for days, until he could find 



DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 21 9 

an opportunity to escape from the State to preserve his 
life." 

Of the despotism of slavery he said, — 

" Sir, I have said that you have no freedom of speech at 
the South. Senators have denounced us as sectional 
because we liave no votes in the South, That reminds mo 
of the Dutch judge in old democratic Berks, who kicked 
the defendant out of doors, locked the door, and then en- 
tered a judgment for default. (Laughter.) Your native 
sons stand on electoral tickets, or vote our principles, at 
the peril of life. Tlien, when you are able with your iron 
despotism to crush out all there who would go with us, 
you turn roun^ and tell us we are getting up a sectional 
party. I assure you, there are tens of thousands of men 
m the South whose sympathies are with us ; but they have 
no opportunity so to vote. In the city of St. Louis, nearly 
three thousand Germans, to show their devotion to lib- 
erty, went to the ballot-boxes, when they could get up no 
State ticket for Fremont, and voted for Millard Fillmore, 
the Know-Nothing candidate, with the word ' Protest ' 
printed on their ballots, — an act which illustrates your 
despotism, aiid shows that these men, who were true to 
liberty in the Old World, will not be false to their cher- 
ished convictions in the New. 

" Even here in the national capitol, that vacant seat 
(pointing to Mr. Sumner's chair) is an evidence that 
freedom of speech is not always tolerated, — not always 
safe." 

To the charge of fanaticism he replied, — 

" If you believe that the people are fanatics, or that 
their leaders deceive them, remember one thing, — that, in 
1850, there were in the United States nearly eight hun- 
dred thousand free persons above twenty years of age who 



220 LIFE OF HENHY WILSON. 

could not read or write. Only ninety-four thousand out 
of this eight hundred thousand happen to live in tlie 
States which Fremont has carried. Remember another 
thing, — that the State of Massachusetts, which you con- 
sider so ultra, — a people so easily deluded, — prints within 
a few thousand, and circulates, more newspapers within 
tlie State than all tlie fifteen Southern States of the Union. 
Remember, they have more volumes in their public libra- 
ries than all the slave States. Ramember, they give away 
more money to the Bible and Missionary and other benevo- 
lent societies, every year, than the entire slaveholding 
States ; and they have done so during the last quarter of 
a century. 

" I tell you, sir, tliat the people are ahead of us ; and 
that is what you fear. You say that they are deceived by 
us ; and tlien you turn round and declare that you cannot 
rely on our disclaimers, because tlie people will pass be- 
yond the direction and control of political leaders. The 
people understand this question, sir : they know their 
responsibilities, their powers, and their duties." 

He closed by these brave words : — 

" I give you notice to-day, gentlemen, what we intend 
to do. If the incoming administration sends into this 
body the nomination of a single man who ever threatened 
the dissolution of the Union, we intend to camp on this 
floor, and to resist his confirmation to the bitter end. 
I give you notice now, that we shall resist the coming into 
power of all that class of men, as enemies of the Consti- 
tution and the Union. 

" We go farther. We mean to hold the incoming ad- 
ministration responsible if it gives confidence or patronage 
to your ' Richmond Enquirers ' and ' Examiners,' your 
' Charleston Mercuries ' and ' Standards,' your ' New- 



DEFENCE OF REPUBLICAN PARTY. 221 

Orleans Deltas ' and your ' South-side Democrats,' or any- 
Democratic journal in the United States which threat- 
ened the dissolution of the Union in the event of our 
success. We intend here in our places to defend that 
Union which makes us one people against the men of 
your party who have threatened to subvert and destroy it. 
We intend to go a little farther. Your slave propagandist 
journals have denounced the independent laboring-men 
of the Noi'th as ' greasy mechanics,' ' filthy operatives,' 
' small-fisted farmers,' ' moon-struck theorists.' We mean 
to hold you responsible if you bestow your confidence 
and patronage upon journals which maintain that ' the 
principle of slavery is itself right, and does not depend 
on difference of complexion.' 

" Senators have told us they want peace ; they want 
repose. Well, sir, I want peace ; I want repose. The 
State I represent wants peace ; wants repose. Tens of 
millions of our property are scattered broadcast over the 
Southern States. The business-men, the merchants, the 
manufacturers, of my State want peace as much as you 
can want it. You can have it. But you cannot have it 
if you want to extend slavery over the free Territories. 
You cannot have it if you continue your efforts to brhig 
Kansas here a slave State. If you want peace, abandon 
your policy of slavery extension. Cease all efforts to 
control the political desthiies of the country through the 
expansion of slavery as an element of political power. 
Plant yourselves upon your reserved constitutional rights, 
and we will aid you in the vindication of those rights'. 
Turn your attention from the forl)idden fruits of Cuban, 
Central-American, or Mexican acquisitions, to your own 
dilapidated fields, where the revegetating forests are 
springing up, and where, in the language of Gov. Wise, 

19* 



222 LIFE OF HEOTIY WILSON. 

' you have the owners skinning the negroes, the negroes 
skinning the land, until all grow poor together.' Erase 
from your statute-books those cruel laws which shock 
the sensibilities of mankind. Place there humane and 
beneficent legislation, which shall protect the relations 
of husband and wife, parent and child; which shall open 
darkened miiids to the elevating influence of Christian 
culture. You will then have the generous sympathies, 
the sincere prayers, of men who reverently look to Him 
whose hand guides the destinies of the world. You will 
have the best wishes of the friends of liberty all over the 
globe. Humanity and Christianity will sanction and bless 
your efforts to hasten on that day, though it may be dis- 
tant, when freedom shall be the inalienable birthright of 
every man who treads the soil of the North-American 
continent." 

Mr. Wilson visited Canada for the first time in the 
autumn, and was present at the banquet in Montreal at 
the opening of the Grand-Trunk Railroad, where to the 
third toast, which was to the chief magistrate of the 
United States, he made this admirable response : — 

"Mr. Mayor and Fellow-Citizens, — I thank you, 
in behalf of the citizens of the United States wlio have 
come to join you on this great festival, for the sentiment 
you have given for the chief magistrate of the United 
States. (Cheers.) I am sure, sir, that I speak the sen- 
timents of every American here to-day, when I say that 
we not only thank you for proposing a sentiment to the 
chief magistrate of our country, but I tiiank you for say- 
ing that you trust that the people of the United States 
and the people of British America will always meet as 
friends. (Cheers.) Difficulties have arisen, have fre- 
quently arisen, between Great Britain and the United 



VISIT TO CANADA. 223 

States. These difficulties, sir, between our governments, 
we all trust, are in process of settlement, so that peace, 
perpetual peace, may be preserved between Great Britain 
and America. (Great applause.) • Let me say here to- 
day, — what I know every son of New England, New York, 
and, in an especial manner, the sons of the mighty West, 
will sustain me in saying, — that we witness the develop- 
ment and the prosperity of the British Colonies in North 
America (cheers) not only without jealousy, but we wit- 
ness them with pride and admiration. (Cheers.) Go 
on, brethren ; improve and develop all the mighty 
resources of British America. Your prosperity is our 
prosperity. (Applause.) We are bound together by 
a thousand associations of blood and of kindred. We 
are connected together by those mighty improvements 
which we are met here to-day to commemorate. We 
are bound together by a treaty of reciprocity, mutually 
beneficial to you and to us. We are beginning to under- 
stand each other, to value each other, to be proud of 
each other's prosperity and success ; and may God grant 
that the sons of British America ahd the sons of the 
North-American republic may never meet again on the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, on river, on lake, on land, in 
any other way than that in which we are all met to- 
day, — to grasp each other's hands in friendship, and to 
aid, to encourage each other in the development of the 
resources of the North-American continent ! (Great 
applause.) Sir, the governor - general has alluded to 
Lord Durham, — a statesman in whose premature grave 
were buried many of the high hopes of the reformers of 
England. He uttered a sentiment that every statesman, 
whether in the service of England or America, should 
respond to ; and that was this, — ' that he never saw an 



224 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

hour pass over recognized and unreformcd abuses witliout 
profound regret.' (Cheers.) Gentlemen, I give you in 
conchision this sentiment : ' Prosperity to the people of 
the Canadas, and success to their government.' " (Great 
applause.) 

Mr. Wilson's Congressional career in 1857, though char- 
acterized by no striking effort in debate, was nevertheless 
marked by incessant and effective labor. We find him, in 
addition to his arduous duties in the Military Committee, 
always abreast of the questions of the times, and vigorously 
advocating liberal and progressive measures. This may 
be seen from a brief record of his doings in the Senate 
for the month of February, here presented : On the 4th 
iust. he spoke in favor of disposing of the alternate 
sections of land along the railroads aided by the govern- 
ment, not to speculators, but to actual settlers on the lines. 
Twenty-one millions of acres had been granted to the 
States for railroad-purposes : by selling to the cultivators 
of the soil, a population would arise to support the roads, 
and make them really serviceable to the country. On the 
lOtli he presented a'resolution against the repeal of the 
fishing bounty ; on the 12th, a resolution to inquire into 
the cause of the failure of the mails at Washington, this 
having occurred thirty-eight times within seventy-two 
days ; on the IXtli inst. he spoke in favor of increasing 
the pay of officers of a rank lower than lieutenant-colonels 
in the army ; on the 18th he advocated the introduction of 
a bust of Chief Justice William Gushing, as an offset to 
that of Mr. Rutledge ; on the 21st he made an argument 
in favor of admitting Minnesota, " clothed," as he said, 
" in the white robes of Freedom," into the Union ; on the 
26th he declared himself in favor of a sub-marine tele- 
graph ; on the 27th he spoke in favor of a telegraphic line 



CONGRESSIONAL CAEEEE. 225 

between the Atlantic and Pacific States ; and on the 28th 
he introduced a bill for the erection of a court-house in 
the city of Boston. Such were some of his labors for the 
month ; and, by a reference to " The Congressional Globe," 
it will be seen that the interests of the Commonwealth he 
represented did not suffer in his hands. 

On the Lecompton Constitution, and the admission of 
Kansas into the Union under it, Mr. Wilson declared his 
sentiments in forcible language on the 3d and 4th of 
February, 1858. Replying to Mr. Brown, he asks, — 

" Wiiy is this act to be consummated, when we know, 
that, on the 4th of Jan^uary, twelve thousand men of that 
Territory voted against this coustitution ; and that there 
were only six thousand votes cast for it on the 21st of De- 
cember, of which three or four thousand were unques- 
tionably fraudulent? 

" There is only one power on this continent which 
could thus control, direct, and guide men : and that is 
that gigantic slave power which holds this administration 
in the hollow of its hand ; which guides and directs the 
Democratic party ; and which has only ta stamp its foot, 
and the men who wield the government of this country 
tremble, submit, and bow to its will. Senators talk about 
the dangers of the country. Great God ! what are our 
dangers? The danger is that there is sucli a power — a 
local, sectional power — that can control this government, 
can ride over justice, ride over a wronged people, consum- 
mate glaring and outrageous frauds, and trample down 
the will of a brave and free people. That is the danger. 
The time has come when the freemen of this country, 
looking to liberty, to popular rights, to justice to all sec- 
tions of the country, should overthrow this power, and 
trample it under their feet forever. The time has come 



226 LIFE OF HENllY WILSON. 

when the people should rise in the majesty of conscious 
power, aud hurl from office and from places of influence 
the men who thus bow to this tyranny. 

" Senators are anxious about the Union. The senator 
from Delaware (Mr. Bayard) to-day thought it was in 
peril. Well, sir, I am not alarmed about it. I am in the 
Union ; my State is in the Union : we intend to stay in it. 
If anybody wants to go out, Mexico and Central America, 
and the valley of the Amazon, are all open to emigration : 
let them start. I shall not hold them back, nor mourn 
over their departure. But all this continent now in the 
Union is American soil, and a patt of my country ; and 
my vote and my influence, now and hereafter, will be 
given to keep it a part of my country." 

The following letter fi-om the late Hon. George T. Bige- 
low indicates the spirit with which liberty-loving men 
responded to the sentiments which the Massachusetts sena- 
tor expressed : — 

Boston, Feb. 22, 1858. 

Dear Sir, — I had read a reporj of your remarks in 
the Senate m reply to Messrs. Brown and Green before 
I received your pamphlet edition of them. I trust that 
you will not think it intrusive in me to say that I was 
highly gratified by the matter, as well as by the tone and 
temper which pervade them. Tliey are manly and digni- 
fied ; sufficiently bold and resolute, without being vitu- 
perative or personal ; maintaining the truth fearlessly, and 
resisting the disposition of the Southern men to overawe 
and browbeat in the right spirit. The South will soon 
learn that their bastard chivalry is worth but little when 
opposed to such courageous assaults. 

I suppose that there is but little, if any, hope of success- 
fully resisting the admission of Kansas under the Le- 



LETTERS. 227 

compton Constitution. There is no scheme of fraud and 
violence which the South will not adopt to secure their 
ends, and which the Northern Democracy will not subser- 
viently support. I cannot doubt, however, that the fla- 
grant wrong and injustice of the whole proceeding will 
arouse the spirit of the North and North-west to a united 
effort against the slavery propagandism of the party in 
power. The great danger is that the enthusiasm of the 
people of the free States will expend itself in electing a 
Republican majority in the next Congress, and will then 
die away, so that we shall lose the presidential election of 
1860. However this may be, the only way is to fight on 
in the confident hope that the day of triumph will surely 
I come. 

I am, with great respect, 

Your friend and servant, 

G. T. BiGELOW. 

Another letter, dated Feb. 22, says in relation to this 
I speech, — 

" It adds to your laurels ; and I congratulate you on 
your successful encounter with our enemies in the Senate. 
Your whole course since you have been a member of the 
Senate has been highly honorable to you, and gratifying to 
the great body of your constituents. You have manifested 
not only the most distinguished ability, but a fearlessness 
that has raised you amazingly in the good opinion of 
Northern men. I hear but one sentiment expressed in 
regard to you ; and that is friendly and respectful. You 
never held so elevated a position as you do at the present 
time. We all feel proud that we have at least one repre- 



228 



LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 



seutative who is both able and willing to take a defiant 
stand against the tyranny which is making our country 
worthless to us and a mockery to the world. 
"Yours very truly, 

" G. R. Russell." 



CHAPTER XII. 

KEPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. — CHALLENGE FROM MR. GWIN. 



Character of his Reply to Mr. Hammond. — " Cotton is King." — Southern 
Institutions. — A Contrast. — Social Condition of the North and South.— 
Mud-sills. — Free Labor of the North. — Conclusion of his Argument.— 
Reply to Mr. Gwin's Challenge. — The Affair amicably adjusted. 



ON the 20th of March (1858) following, Mr. Wilson 
made a most eloquent speech in reply to Mr, Ham- 
mond of South Carolina, who had proclaimed that " Cotton 
was king," and most insolently characterized the Northern 
working-men as " mud-sills " and " essentially slaves." In 
Mr. Wilson's array of facts, his cogent arguments, his 
bold invective, he confounds this chivalric defender of 
the servile institution, and presents the noblest plea for 
the Northern laborer ever uttered in the halls of Con- 
gress. By all his sympathies, by the whole training of 
his life, he was prepared for the contest. In some respects 
this speech is a model of invective eloquence, and has en- 
deared its author to the hearts of milhons of the work- 
ing - people. We regret that but a few extracts can be 
given here. 

To his vaunting assertion that " Cotton'was king," he 
says, " The senator, filled with magnificent visions of 
Southern power, crowns Cotton ' king ; ' and tells us, 



230 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

that, if they should stop supplying cotton for three years, 
'England would topple headlong, and carry the whole 
civilized world with her, save the South ' ! What pre- 
sumption ! The South, — which owns lands and slaves, 
the price fluctuating with the production, use, and price 
of cotton, — having no other resource or means of support, 
would go harmless ; while the great commercial centres 
of the world, with the vast accumulations of capital, the 
products of ages of accumulation, with varied pursuits 
and skilled industry, would ' tojjple ' to their fall. Sir, 
I suppose the coffee-planters of Brazil, the tea-growers of 
the Celestial Empire, and the wheat-growers on the shores 
of the Black Sea and on the banks of the Don and the Vol- 
ga, indulge in the same magnificent illusions. I would 
remind the senator that the commercial ■ world is not 
governed by the cotton-planters of the South, the coffee- 
planters of Brazil, the teargrowers of China, nor the 
wheat-producers of Eastern Europe. I tell the senator 
that England, France, Germany, Western Europe, and 
the Northern States of the Union, are the commercial, 
manufacturing, business, and monetary centres of tlie 
world ; that their merchants, manufacturers, and capital-, 
ists grasp the globe ; that cotton and sugar and tea and 
coffee and wheat, and the spices of the isles of the Orien- 
tal seas, are grown for them. Sir, the cotton-planters of 
the South are their agents. I would remind the senator 
that the free States in 1850 produced eight hundred and 
fifty million dollars of manufactures, and that only fifty- 
two million dollars of that vast production — about one- 
seventeenth part of it — was made up of cotton. Our 
manufactures and mechanic arts now must exceed twelve 
hundred million dollars ; and cotton does not make up 
more than seventy million dollars. Does the senator 



EEPLY TO MR. HAMiMOND. 231 

think the free States would ' topple ' down if they sliould 
lose one-seventeenth part of their productive industry ? 

" The productive industry of Massachusetts, a State that 
manufactures more than one-third of all the cotton manu- 
factured in the country, was, in 1855, three hundred and 
fifty million dollars : oidy twenty-six million dollars, one- 
thirteenth part of it, was cotton. Does the senator be- 
lieve that a State which has a productive industry of three 
hundred and fifty million dollars — about two hundred and 
eighty dollars per head for each person — would perish if 
she should lose -twenty-six million dollars of that vast 
production ? 

" It is no matter of surprise that gentlemen who live 
away off on cross-roads, where the cotton blooms, should 
come to believe that cotton rules the world ; but a few 
months' association with the great world would cure that 
delusion. ' You are our factors,' exclaims the senator ; 
' you bring and carry for us. Suppose we were to dis- 
charge you ; suppose we were to take our business out 
of your hands : we should consign you to anarchy and 
poverty.' Sir, suppose, when the senator returns from 
this chamber to his cotton-fields, his slaves should in 
their simplicity say to him, 'Massa, you only sells de 
cotton : we plants ; we hoes ; we picks de cotton. 'Spose 
we discharge you, massa ! ' The unsophisticated ' mud- 
sills ' would be quite as reasonable as the senator. The 
senator seems to think that the cotton-planters hold us 
in the hollow of their hands : if they shake them, we 
tremble ; if they close them, we perish." 

To his boasting of the excellence of Southern social 
and political institutions Senator Wilson replies, — 

" The senator from South Carolina, after crowning Cot- 
ton as king, with power to bring England and all the civ- 



232 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

ilized world ' toppling ' down into the yawning gulfs of 
bankruptcy and ruin, complacently tells the Senate and 
the trembling subjects of his cotton-king that ' the great- 
est strength of the South arises from the harmony of her 
political and social institutions ; ' that ' her forms of soci- 
ety are the best in the world ; ' that ' she has an extent 
of political freedom, combined with entire security, seen 
nowhere on earth.' The South, he tells us, ' is satisfied, 
harmonious, and prosperous : ' and lie asks us if we ' have 
heard that the ghosts of Mendoza and Torquemada are 
stalking in the streets of our great cities ; that the Inquisi- 
tion is at hand ; and that there are fearful rumors of con- 
sultations for vigilance committees.' Sir, this self-com- 
placency is sublime. No son of the Celestial Empire can 
approach the senator in self-complacency. That ' society 
the best in the world ' wliere more than three millions of 
beings created in the image of God are held as chattels, — 
sunk from the lofty level of humanity to the abject con- 
dition of unreasoning beasts of burden ! That ' society 
the best in the world ' where are manacles, chains, and 
whips, auction-blocks, prisons, bloodhounds, scourgiiigs, 
lynchings, and burnings ; laws to torture the body, shrivel 
the mind, and debase the soul ; where labor is dishonored, 
and laborers despised ! ' Political freedom ' in a land 
where woman is imprisoned for teaching little children to 
read God's holy Word ; where professors are deposed and 
banished for opposing the extension of slavery ; where 
public men are exiled for quoting in a national conven- 
tion the words of Jefferson ; where voters are mobbed 
for appearing to vote for free territory ; and where book- 
sellers are driven from the country for selling that mas- 
terly work of genius, ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' ! A land 
of ' certain security,' where patrols, costing, as in 



REPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 233 

Old Virginia, more than is expended to educate her 
poor children, stalk the country to catch the faintest 
murmur ol" discontent ; wliere the bay of the bloodhound 
never ceases ; where, but little more tlian a year ago, 
rose the startling cry of insurrection ; and where men, 
some of tliem owned by a member of this body, were 
scourged and murdered for suspected insurrection ! 
'Political freedom' and 'certain security' in a land 
which demands tliat seventeen millions of freemen 
shall stand guard to seize and carry back fleeing bond- 
men ! " 

Contrasting the desolation of the South with tlie pros- 
perity of the North, he says, — 

^ De Bow's ' Resources of the South,' from Fenno's 
' Southern Medical Reports,' speaks of ' decaying (tld 
tenements' in Georgia ; 'red old hills, stripped of their 
native growth and virgin soil and washed into deep 
gullies, witli here and tliere patches of Bermuda grass 
and stunted pine-shrubs struggling for subsistence on 
what was once the richest soil of America.' Millions of 
acres of the richest soil of the Western world have been 
converted into barrenness and desolation by the untutored, 
unpaid, and thriftless labor of slaves. This exhaustion 
of Southern soil tilled by bondmen ; this deterioration, 
decay, and desolation, now visible in what was once the 
fairest portion of the continent, — stands confessed by the 
most eminent writers of the South. Tliese descriptions 
of the decay and desolation of some of the fairest por- 
tions of the sunny South remind us of the desolating 
effects of slavery upon the rich fields of classic Italy in 
the days of Tiberius Graccluis, as described by the brilliant 
and philosophic pen of Bancroft in his masterly article 
on Roman slavery. 

20* 



234 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" Turning, Mr. President, from this contemplation of 
the desolations of slavery to the rugged soil and still 
more rugged clime of the free North, we shall see that 
the farms tilled by free, educated men are annually 
blooming with a fresher and richer verdure ; that they 
annually wave with larger harvests of the varied products 
which find markets in the cities and villages which com- 
merce, manufactures, and the mechanic arts, create, beau- 
tify, and adorn. While the plantations of the South 
echo the sound of the lash by which unpaid toil is driven 
on in the blighting process of exhausting the richest 
soils, the farms of the free States are increasing in value, 
fertility, and beauty : they are nursing a race of uoble 
and independent men, where 

' The lowliest farm-house hearth is graced 
With manly hearts, in piety sincere ; 
Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste, 
In friendship warm and true, in danger brave ; 
Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave.' " 

In respect to the comparative educational and literary 
and scientific condition of the two sections of the Union, 
he remarks, — 

" In the slave States, laws forbid the education of nearly 
four millions of her people : in the free States, laws encour- 
age the education of the people, and public opinion up- 
holds and enforces those laws. In 1850 there were sixty- 
two thousand schools, seventy-two thousand teachers, two 
million eight hundred thousand scholars, in the public 
schools of the free States : in the slave States there were 
eighteen thousand schools, nineteen thousand teachers, 
and five hundred and eighty thousand scholars. Massa- 
chusetts has nearly two hundred thousand scholars in her 



REPLY TO MR. HAINIMOND. 235 

public schools, at a cost of a million three hundred thou- 
sand dollars. South Carolina has seventeen tliousand 
scholars in her public schools: seventy-five thousand dol- 
lars is paid by the State ; and the governor in 1853 said, 
that, ' under the present mode of applying it, it was the 
profusion of the prodigal rather than the judicious gene- 
rosity which confers real benefits.' New York has more 
scholars in her public schools than all the slave States 
together. Ohio has five hundred and two thousand 
scholars in her public schools, supported at an expense 
of two million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
Kentucky has seventy-six thousand scholars, supported at 
an expense of a hundred and forty-six tliousand dollars. 
" The free States had, in 1850, more than fifteen thou- 
sand libraries, containing four million volumes : the slave 
States had seven hundred libraries, containing six hun- 
dred and fifty thousand volumes. Massachusetts, the land 
of 'hireling operatives,' has eighteen hundred libraries, 
which contain not less than seven hundred and fifty thou- 
sand volumes, — more libraries and volumes than all the 
slave States combined. The little State of Rhode Island, 
a mere patch of thirteen hundred square miles on the 
surface of New England, has more volumes in her libra- 
ries than have the five great States of Georgia, Florida, 
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. De Bow — good 
Southern authority — says, that, in every country, the 
press must be regarded as a great educational agency. The 
free States had, in 1850, eighteen hundred newspapers, 
with a circulation of tliree hundred and thirty-five mil- 
lion: the slave States had, at that time, seven hundred 
newspapers, with a circulation of eighty-one million. The 
free States have seven times as many religious papers, and 
twelve times as many scientific papers, as the South. Mas- 



236 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

saclnisetts has more religious papers than all the slav'e- 
holdiiig States of the Union. She has a circulation of 
two million for her scientific papers : the South has but 
three hundred and seventy-two thousand. The ' hireling 
operatives, mechanics, and laborers,' the very ' mud-sills' 
of society, read five times as many copies of scientific 
papers as the entire South, including that class whicli, 
the senator tells us, leads ' progress, civilization, and 
refinement.' Nine-tenths of the- book-publisiiers of the 
United States are in the free States, ' The Charleston 
Standard' — good authority with the senator — tells us ' that 
their pictures are painted at the North, their books pub- 
lished at the North, tlieir periodicals printed at the North ; 
that should a man rise with the genius of Shakspeare or 
Dickens or Fielding, or all three combined, and speak 
from the South, he would not receive enough to pay 
the cost of publication.' That class, that favored class, 
which leads, as the senator tells us, ' progress, civiliza- 
tion, and refinement,' forces the literary talent to the 
North, the home of hireling operatives, to find not only 
publishers, but readers also. 

" Of the authors mentioned in Duyckinck's ' Cyclopae- 
dia of American Literature,' eighty-seven were natives of 
slave States, and four hundred and three were natives 
of the free North, — the land of the 'hireling laborers.' 
Of the poets mentioned in Griswold's ' Poets and Poetry 
of America,' seventeen were natives of the land where 
they have that other class, which leads ' progress, civiliza- 
tion, and refinement,' and a hundred and twenty-three 
were natives of the land of ' hireling operatives,' — the 
' mud-sills ' of society. Of the poets whose nativity is 
given by Mr. Reed in his ' Female Poets of America,' 
eleven are from the South, seventy-three from the North. 



REPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 237 

Nine-tenths of all the books written in America fit to be 
read, nine-tentbs of all the books published in America 
fit to be published, are written and published, not in 
the land of that privileged class of which the senator 
boasts, but in the free States, unblessed by that privileged 
class. Nearly all the authors whose names grace and 
adorn the rising literature of America, whose names are 
known in the literary and scientific world, find their homes 
in the free States of the North. Irving, Ticknor, Sparks, 
Bancroft, Prescott, Hildreth, and Motley, whose contribu- 
tions to the historical literature of America are recognized 
by the literary world ; Dana, Bryant, Halleck, Longfellow, 
Sprague, Whittier, Lowell, and Willis, the recognized 
poets of our country ; Hawthorne, Emerson, Curtis, Mel- 
ville, and Mitchell, whose names grace the light literature 
of our times ; and Silliman, Agassiz, and Poirce, names 
associated with American science, — find their homes, not 
in the land of the privileged class that the senator from 
South Carohna tells us leads ' progress, civilization, and 
refinement ; ' but they dwell in the land of ' small-fisted 
farmers, greasy mechanics, and filthy operatives,' — the 
' mud-sills ' of society. The sculptors and the painters 
and the artists — they, too, find their homes, not in the 
sunny South, but in the free land of the North. In liter- 
ature, in science, in the arts, the superiority of the North 
is beyond all question. Men who have been, or who now 
are, ' hireling laborers,' in some forms, in the North, have 
contributed more to the arts, the science, the literature 
of America than the whole class of slaveholders now 
living in the South. 

" I would not, Mr. President, underrate the influence 
of the slave States in the councils of the republic. Bound 
together by the cohesive attraction of a vast interest, from 



238 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

which fhe civilization of the age averts its face, the privi- 
leged class have won the control and direct the policy of 
the government. In the council and in the field, the 
representatives of this privileged class have assumed to 
direct and to guide ; but in accumulating capital, in com- 
merce, in manufactures, in the mechanic arts, in educa- 
tional institutions, in literature, in science, in the arts, in 
the charities of religion and humanity, in all the means 
by which the nation is known among men, the free States 
maintain a position of unquestioned pre-eminence. In all 
these the South is a mere dependency of the North. 
India and Australia are not more the dependencies of 
England than are the slaveholding States the dependen- 
cies of the free States. Sir, your fifteen slave States are 
but fifteen suburban wards of our great commercial city 
of New York. Beyond the political field this dependency 
is everywhere visible, even to the most blind devotees of 
' King Cotton.' Mr. Perry, in an address before the South- 
Carolina Institute in 1856, says of the State represented 
by the senator, ' The dependence of South Carolina upon 
the Northern States for all the necessaries, comforts, and 
luxuries which the mechanic arts afford, has drained her 
of her wealth, and made her positively poor.' " 

Mr. Wilson thus nobly speaks of the condition of free 
labor at the North : — 

" Mr. President, the senator from South Carolina tells 
us that ' all the powers of the world cannot abolish 
the thing ' he calls slavery : ' God alone can do it 
when he repeals the fiat, " The poor ye have always with 
you." For the man who lives by daily labor, and your 
whole class of hireling manual laborers and operatives, 
•are essentially slaves. Onr slaves are black, happy, con- 
tent, unaspiring : yours are white ; and they feel galled 



I 



REPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 239 

by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote : yours do 
vote ; and, being the majority, they are the depositaries 
of all your political power ; and if they knew the tre- 
mendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than " an 
army with banners," and could combine, your society 
would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, 
and your property divided.' 

" ' The poor ye have always with you.' This fiat of 
Almighty God, which Cliristian men of all ages and lands 
have accepted as the imperative injunction of the common 
Father of all to care for the children of misfortune and 
sorrow, the senator from South Carolina accepts as the 
foundation-stone, the eternal law, of slavery, which ' all 
the powers of the earth cannot abolish.' These precious 
words of our heavenly Father, ' The poor ye have always 
with you,' are perpetually sounding in the ears of man- 
kind, ever reminding'them of their dependence and their 
duties. These words appeal alike to the conscience and 
the heart of mankind. To men blessed in their basket 
and their store tliey say, ' Property has its duties as well 
as its rights.' To men' clothed with authority to shape 
the policy or to administer the laws of the State they say, 
' Lighten, by wise, humane, and equal laws, the burdens 
of the toiling and dependent children of men.' To 
men of every age and every clime they appeal by the 
divine promise, that ' he that giveth to the poor lendeth 
to the Lord.' Sir, I thank God that I live in a Common- 
wealth which sees no warrant in these words of inspira- 
tion to oppress the sons and daughters of toil and poverty. 
Over the poor and lowly she casts the broad shield of 
equal, just, and humane legislation. The poorest man 
that treads her soil, no matter what blood may run in his 
veins, is protected in his rights, and incited to labor by 



240 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

no other force than the assurance that the fruits of his 
toil belong to himself, to the wife of his bosom, and the 
children of his love. 

" The senator from South Carolina exclaims, ' The 
man who lives by daily labor, your whole class of man- 
ual laborers, are essentially slaves : they feel galled by 
their degradation.' What a sentiment is this to hear 
uttered in the councils of this democratic republic ! 
The senator's political associates, who listen to these 
words which brand hundreds of thousands of the men 
they represent in the free States and hundreds of their 
neighbors and personal friends as ' slaves,' have found 
no words to repel or rebuke this language. This language 
of scorn and contempt is addressed to senators who were 
not nursed by a slave ; whose lot it was to toil with their 
own hands ; to eat bread earned, not by the sweat of 
anoth'er's brow, but by their own. Sir, I am the son of a 
' hireling manual laborer,' who, with the frosts of seventy 
winters on his brow, ' lives by daily labor.' I, too, have 
lived by daily labor ; I, too, have been a ' hireling man- 
ual laborer.' Poverty cast its dark and" chilling shadow 
over the home of my childhood ; and Want was there 
sometimes, an unbidden guest. At the age of ten years, 
to aid him who gave me being in keeping the gainit 
spectre from the hearth of the mother who bore me, I 
left the home of my boyhood, and went to earn my bread 
by ' daily labor.' Many a weary mile have I travelled 

' To beg a brother of the earth 
To give me leave to toil.' 

" Sir, I have toiled as a ' hireling manual laborer ' in 
the field and in the workshop ; and I tell the senator from 
South Carolina that I never ' felt galled by my degra- 



KEPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 241 

datioii.' No, sir ; never ! Perhaps the senator who 
represents that ' other class, which leads progress, civili- 
zation, and refinement,' will ascribe this to obtuseiiess 
of intellect and blunted sensibilities of the heart. Sir, I 
was conscious of my manhood : I was the peer of my 
employer. I knew that the laws and institutions of my 
native and adopted States threw over him and me alike 
the panoply of equality : I knew, too, that the world was 
before me ; that its wealth, its garnered treasures of 
knowledge, its honors, the coveted prizes of life, were 
witliin the grasp of a brave heart and a tireless hand ; 
and I accepted the responsibilities of my position, all un- 
conscious that I was a ' slave.' I have employed others, 
— hundreds of ' hireling manual laborers.' Some of 
them then possessed, and now possess, more property 
than I ever owned ; some of them were better educated 
than myself, — yes, sir, better educated, and better read 
too, than some senators on this floor ; and many of them, 
in moral excellence and purity of character, I could not 
but feel, were my superiors. 

" I have occupied, Mr. President, for more tlian thirty 
years, the relation of employer or employed ; and, while I 
never felt ' galled b}' my degradation ' in the one case, in 
the other I was never conscious that my ' hireling laborers ' 
were my infenors. That man is a ' snob ' who boasts of 
being a ' hireling laborer,' or who is ashamed of being a 
' hireling laborer ; ' that man is a ' snob ' who feels any 
inferiority to any man because he is a ' hireling laborer,' 
or who assumes any superiority over others because he is 
an employer. Honest labor is honorable ; and the man 
who is ashamed that he is or was a ' hireling laborer ' has 
not manhood enough to 'feel galled by his degradation.' 

" Having occupied, Mr, President, the relation of either 

21 



242 LIFE OF HEKRY WILSON. 

employed or employer for the third of a century ; having 
lived in a Commonwealth where the ' hireling class of 
manual laborers ' are ' the depositaries of political power ; ' 
having associated with this class in all the relations of life, 
— I tell the senator from South Carolina, and the class he 
represents, that he libels, grossly libels them, when he de- 
clares that they are 'essentially slaves.' There can be 
found nowhere in America a class of men more proudly 
conscious or tenacious of their rights. Friends and foes 
have ever found them 

' A stubborn race, fearing and flattering none.' 

" But the senator from South Carolina tells us, that, if 
the hireling laborers knew the ' tremendous secret ' of the 
ballot-box, our ' society would be reconstructed, our gov- 
ernment overthrown, and our property divided.' Does not 
the senator know that an immense majority of the ' hire- 
ling class of manual laborers ' of New England possess 
property? Does he not know that the man who has ac- 
cumulated a few hundred dollars by his own toil, by the 
savings of years, who has a family growing up around him 
upon which his hopes are centred, is a conservative ? 
Does not the senator know that he watches the appropria- 
tion-bills in the meetings of those little democracies, the 
towns, as narrowly as the representative from Tennessee 
in the other House (George W. Jones) watches the money- 
bills on the private calendar? I live, Mr. President, 
in a small town of five thousand inhabitants. Nearly 
half of the population are employed as operatives and me- 
chanics for the manufacture of shoes for the Western and 
Southern markets. In 1840 we had thirteen hundred in- 
habitants, and the property valuation was about three hun- 
dred thousand dollars. Last May we had fourteen hun- 



REPLY TO MR. HAISIMOND. 243 

dred names on our poll-list, two-thirds of them ' hireling 
mechanics,' and a property valuation of over two millions of 
dollars. Those ' hireling laborers,' on town-meeting days, 
make the appropriations for schools, for roads, and for all 
other purposes. Do they not know ' the tremendous secret 
of the ballot-box ' ? Have they proposed to divide the 
property they themselves created ? No, sir ; no ! But I 
will tell the senator what they have done. Since 1850 
they have built seven new schoolhouses, with all the mod- 
ern improvements, at an expense of about forty thousand 
dollars ; one house costing more than fourteen thousand. 
They have established a high school, where the most ad- 
vanced scholars of the common schools are fitted for admis- 
sion to the colleges, or for the professions, the business, 
and the duties of life. They have established a town- 
library, freely accessible to all the inhabitants, contain- 
ing the choicest works of authors of the Old World and the 
New, of ancient and modern times. The j)Oorest ' hireling 
manual laborer,' without cost, can take from that library to 
his home the works of the master-minds, and hold com- 
munion with 

' The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who rule 
Our spirits from their urns.' 

" The senator tells us, Mr. President, that their slaves 
are ' well compensated.' South Carolina slaves ' well 
compensated ' ! Why, sir, the senator himself, in a speech 
made at home for home consumption, entered into an esti- 
mate to show that a field-hand could be supported for from 
* eighteen to nineteen dollars per annum ' on the rice and 
cotton plantations. He states the quantity of corn and 
bacon and salt necessary to support the ' well-compensated ' 
slave. And this man, supported by eighteen dollars per 



244 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

annum, with the privileoe of being flogged at discretion, 
and having his wife or children sold from him at the neces- 
sity or will of his master, the senator from South Carolina 
informs the Senate of the United States, is ' well compen- 
sated ' ! Sir, there is not a poor-house in the free States 
where there would not be a rebellion in three days if the- 
inmates were compelled to subsist on the quantity and 
quality of food the senator estimates as ample ' compensa- 
tion ' for the labor of a slave in South Carolina. 

"Turning from his ' well-compensated' slaves, the sena- 
tor tells us that our ' hireling laborers,' our ' mud-sills,' are 
scantily ' compensated.' Mr. Clingman of North Caro- 
lina, in urging the establishment of cotton manufactories 
in the South, says the wages of labor at the North are one 
hundred per cent higher than wages in the same pursuits 
in the South. The wages of labor in iron mills in South 
Carolina were thirteen dollars per month in 1850 : in Mas- 
sachusetts they were thirty. Sir, these hands of mine have 
earned, month after month, two dollars per day in manual 
labor ; and I have paid that sum to ' hireling manual labor- 
ers ' month after month, and year after year. Financial 
and commercial revulsions sometimes come upon us, and 
press heavily upon all branches of the mechanic arts 
and manufactures ; but labor is generally well employed 
and well paid. At any rate, the laboring-men of the free 
States have open to their industry all the avenues of agri- 
culture, commerce, manufactures, and the multifarious 
mechanic arts, where skilled labor is demanded, and where 
they do not have to maintain, as the senator in his address 
before the institute of his own State tells us the white 
men of South Carolina have to maintain, 'a feeble and 
ruinous competition with the labor of slaves.' 

" Borrowing, Mr. President, an idea found in a speech 



REPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 245 

made in the other House by Mr. Pickens of his own State 
more than twenty years ago, in which he threatened to 
preach insurrection to Northern laborers, the senator asks 
♦how we woukl Hke for them to send lecturers and agitators 
to teach our hireling laborers ' the ' tremendous secret of the 
power of the ballot-box,' and ' to aid in combining them 
and to lead them.' Sir, I tell the senator we would wel- 
come him, his lecturers and agitators ; we would bid them 
welcome to our hearth-stones and our altars. Ours are 
the institutions of freedom ; and they flourish best in the 
storms and agitations of inquiry and free discussion. We 
are conscious that our social and political institutions have 
not attained perfection ; and we invoke the examination and 
the criticism of the genius and learning of all Christen- 
dom. Should the senator and his agitators and lecturers 
come to Massachusetts on a mission to teach our ' hire- 
ling class of manual laborers,' our ' mud-sills,' our ' slaves,' 
the ' tremendous secret of the ballot-box,' and to help 
♦ combine and lead them,' these stigmatized ' hirelings ' 
would reply to the senator and his associates, ' We are 
freemen ; we are the peers of the gifted and the wealthy ; 
we know the " tremendous secret of the ballot-box ; " and 
we mould and fashion these institutions that bless and adorn 
our proud and free Commonwealth. These public schools 
are ours, for the education of our children ; these libraries, 
with their accumulated treasures, are ours ; these multitu- 
dinous and varied pursuits of life, where intelligence and 
skill find their reward, are ours. Labor is here honored 
and respected, and great examples incite us to action. All 
around us, — in the professions ; in the marts of commerce; 
on the exchange, where merchant-princes and capitalists do 
congregate ; in these manufactories and workshops, where 
the products of every clime are fashioned into a thousand 

21* 



246 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

forms of utility and beauty ; on these smilinop farms, fertil- 
ized by the sweat of free Isibor ; in every position of pri- 
vate and of public life, — are our associates, who were but 
yesterday " hirehng laborers," " muil-sills," " slaves." In 
every department of human effort are noble men, who 
sprang from our ranks, — men whose good deeds will be 
felt, and will live in the grateful memories of men, when 
the stones reared by the hands of affection to their honored 
names shall crumble into dust. Our eyes glisten and our 
hearts throb over the bright, glowing, and radiant pages 
of our history, that record the deeds of patriotism of the 
sons of New England, who sprang from our ranks, and woi-e 
the badges of toil. While the names of Benj uiiin Frank- 
Im, Roger Sherman, Nathanael Greene, and Paul Revere, 
live on the brightest pages of our history, the mechanics 
of Massachusetts and New England will never want illus- 
trious examples to incite us to noble aspirations and noble 
deeds. Go home : say to your privileged class, which, you 
vauntingly say, " leads progress, civilization, and refine- 
ment," that it is the opinion of the " hireling laborers "of 
Massachusetts, if you have no sympathy for your African 
bondmen, in whose veins flows so much of your own blood, 
you should at least sympathize with the millions of your own 
race, whose labor you have dishonored and degraded by 
slavery. You should teach your millions of poor and igno- 
rant white men, so long oppressed by your policy, the " tre- 
mendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than 'an army 
with banners.' " You should combine, and lead them to the 
adoption of a policy which shall secure their own emanci- 
pation from a degrading thraldom.' " 

He concludes his argument with these strong and earnest 
words of counsel : — 

" Duty to the government now prostituted and polluted, 



KEPLY TO MR. HAMMOND. 247 

to tlie country now dishonored in the face of the civilized 
world, summons tlie liberty-loving and patriotic men of the 
republic, of every name and creed, to ' forget, forgive, and 
unite,' and rally to tlie overthrow of this venal, cringing, 
and inglorious administration, and to the utter annihilation 
of the oligarchic Democracy. To the men of the North, 
ay, and the men of the South, who loathe fraud, paltry 
trickery, venality, and servility, who believe that ' right- 
eousness exalteth a nation,' this summons alike appeals. 
But to no men does this summons appeal with such irresisti- 
ble and imperative force as to the ' whole hireling class of 
manual laborers and operatives,' now disdainfully stigma- 
tized as tiie ' slaves,' the ' very mud-sills,' of that society 
upon which that privileged class assumes to rest which now 
claims to control this government, and ' to lead progress, 
civilization, and refinement ' in America. It appeals to 
them to repel the libellous aspersions cast upon the toiling 
millions of America, by taking, through the ballot-box, the 
reins of power from the grasp of the slaveholding aristoc- 
racy of the South and their servile allies of the North ; 
rebuking the arrogance of the one by banishment from 
usiirpi,'d power, and the servility of the other by putting 
upon their breasts the ' Scarlet Letter ' of dishonor. It 
appeals to them to place in every department of the Federal 
Government statesmen who cherish a profound reverence 
and an inextinguishable love for humanity ; who are ani- 
mated by lofty motives, aims, and purposes ; guided by 
wise, comprehensive, and patriotic counsels ; and who will 
put the republic in harmony with the sacred and inaliena- 
ble rights of mankind." 

During this session Mr. Wilson received a challenge 
from Mr. Gwin of California for some words spoken has- 
tily in debate. He replied to it, as he had done to that 



248 LUTE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of Mr. Brooks, by saying, that, while he held to the riirht 
of self-defence, he did not, as was well known, accept the 
code of the duellist. He was willing to refer the ditierence 
between Mr. Gwin and himself to any three members of 
the Senate, and abide by their decision. Messrs. Seward, 
Crittenden, and Davis were selected, who on the 12tli of 
June drew up the following agreement: — 

Washington, June 12, 1858. 

Gentlemen, — We have made ourselves acquainted 
with tlie circumstances and facts involved in the case sub- 
mitted to us. 

The remarks of Mr. Gwin, imputing unworthy motives — 
namely, those of demagogism — to Mr. Wilson, although 
general, certainly were objectionable and unparliament- 
ary ; and yet they by no means justified or warranted 
Mr. Wilson in using the very opprobrious epithet with 
which he retaliated. Mr. Gwin's rejoinder in contume- 
lious terms is to be regarded as a passionate expression, 
naturally provoked by the offensive language of Mr. Wil- 
son. We think, therefore, that Mr, Wilson ought to 
regard himself in fact as having committed the first real 
personal offence ; and therefore he should make such 
reparation as is now in his power. We are possessed of 
the fact, — which, indeed, is apparent on the face of tlie 
reported debate, — that Mr. Wilson, in using the epithet 
employed, did not impute any want of personal integrity 
or honor to Mr. Gwin, but merely reflected upoji his course 
in legislation in regard to California, which Mr. Wilson 
deemed extravagant and wasteful ; although the expression 
is obviously liable to an offensive and dishonoring con- 
struction. With this disclaimer adopted by Mr. Wilson, 
we hold that Mr. Gwin is bound to withdraw the re- 



MUTUAI. RETRACTION. 249 

proacliful lano;uan;e in which he replied to Mr. Wilson. 
Tlie disavowal required of Mr. Wilson, and the withdrawal 
demanded from Mr. Gwin, shall be deemed to have been 
made by them, respectively, when they shall have expressed 
in writing their assent to this report. 

J. J. Crittenden. 
Wm. H. Seward. 
Jeffn. Davis. 
To Messrs. Wilson and Gwix. 

I assent to the above. 

Henry Wilson. 

I assent to the above. 

Wm. M. Gwin. 

The parties were satisfied with the mutual explanation 
and concession; and thus the matter ended. Duelling 
belongs to the mediaeval ages ; and so this Northern senator 
again decided. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



RE-ELECTION TO THE UNITED-STATES SENATE. PACaFlC 

RAILROAD. ORATION AT LAWRENCE. THE JOHN 

BROWN RAID. THE SLAVE-TRADE. 



Re-elected by a Large Majority. — Reasons for it. — His Industry. — Patron- 
age. — Advocates Central Route for the Pacific Railroad. — Extract from 
his Speech. — A Radical Southern Party. — A Personal Interview. — His 
Course. — Temperance Meeting. — Printers' Banquet. — Paul Morphy. — 
Fourth of July at Lawrence. — His Address. — His Course in respect to the 
Raid of John Brown. — Meeting at Natick. — Reply to Mr. Iverson. — Vote 
of Thanks by the General Court. — Speech on the Slave-Trade. 



IN January, 1859, the General Court re-elected Mr. 
Wilson to the United - States Senate for six years 
from the 3d of March in that year ; the liiojher bianch 
giving him thirty-five out of forty votes, and the lower 
a hundred and ninety - nine out of two hundred and 
thirty-five votes. His record had been clear, his labors 
arduous ; his legislative experience now was large ; his 
courage had been tested. The times demanded men of 
steady nerve ; and hence this strong majority was given 
to him. The expectation was not disappointed ; for he is 
one of the very few whom life at Washington does not 
corrupt. 

In looking over the files of " The Conirressional Globe," 
we find him with tireless industry taking part in the dis- 



PACIFIC RAILROAD. 2")1 

cussions on the questions of the clay, advocating retrench- 
ment in postal, naval, and every other department of 
the government. 

In respect to patronage he truly said, " I think it should 
be the interest of all parties to get clear of patronage ; for 
patronage is only weakness, if you have any principles to 
carry." 

Of the projects for internal improvement at that time 
before Congress, one of the most important was the con- 
struction of a railroad across the continent. Mr. Davis had 
caused extensive explorations to be made, and three routes 
for the road were indicated. The Southerners advocated 
the line through Arizona, called the " Disunion route," 
because some senators had avowed that they should own 
it on "the dissolution of the Union. The administration 
fiivored them ; but, on the eleventh day of January, Mr. 
Wilson, in a speech displaying vast research and great abil- 
ity, clearly pointed out the impracticability of that line, and 
advocated the adoption of the central route, which was 
finally agreed upon, through Nebraska and Nevada. Econ- 
omy, freedom, and the business of the country, alike de- 
manded that the road should run in this direction ; and 
the gigantic scheme could not be carried into effect, he 
said, without the liberal aid of government. From the 
array of facts which he presented, one might have thought 
that "railroading" had been the principal study of his life, 
and travelling in the " Far West " his diversion. This 
speech turned the attention of the public more directly to 
the central line, and greatly encouraged the friends of prog- 
ress in the East to enter upon the construction of the 
road. The Hon. A. A. Sargent of California, who, like 
Mr. Wilson, is a self-made, practical man, subsequently 
pressed with the same energy the construction of the Cen- 



252 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tral Pacific road ; and, after years of perseveriiio; effort, 
tlie drivinir of the golden spike connectincj the Union 
Pacific with that road gave these two gentlemen inex- 
pressible delight. We regret that we can give but a 
single extract from Mr. Wilson's admirable speech : — 

" I think," said he, " the conrse I have proposed is that 
suggested by sound policy ; and I shoujd like to recommit 
this bill, or in some way put it in such a shape, that we 
shall, as a government, undertake the construction of a 
railroad starting between the mouths of the Big Sioux and 
Kansas Rivers, crossing the continent to San Francisco on 
a line north of the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth parallel, and 
south of the forty-third parallel. Let that be a great na- 
tional work : for the idea of the country is to go to San 
Francisco, where there is population ; not to Pnget Sound, 
where there is none ; and not to San Diego, where thei'e 
never can be any. Then let us give oin- Southern friends, 
those gentlemen who want a road on which they can go to 
the Pacific Ocean when they dissolve the Union, all the 
lands they want south of the thirty-fourth parallel, and let 
them make the most of them. I hope they may make 
a hundred million dollars out of them ; for I should rejoice 
in their prosperity. Then let us give lands on the northern 
line, and carry out the ideas suggested by the senator from 
Minnesota and the senator from Wisconsin. What they 
want in that vast northern region is a people. They want 
settlers : and a policy of tiiis. kind will carry settlers from 
Lake Superior a thousand miles to the Rocky Mountains; 
and, if the engineers who went over this route are to be 
believed, even in the Rocky Mountains is to be found good 
land. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, to Puget Sound, 
there will be found not only a great country, but across 
that line, in time, I do not doubt we are to have a great 



PACIFIC RAILROAD. 253 

commercial route connecting the northern lakes with 
Pii^et Sound. 

" These are my views. I am for a Pacific railroad ; but 
I do not believe in the idea of attempting to construct a 
road to the Pacific Ocean merely by grants of land within 
any reasonable period. If we make a grant to the north- 
ern line, I do not expect a road to be built there for some 
time. I do not even expect it to be commenced at once. 
I know it cannot be done in earnest in the present 
financial condition of the world. Neither do I expect any 
such thing over the southern line. But we want a cen- 
tral road ; we want it begun now ; we want it completed 
as speedily as possible ; and, to do that, let us take the 
money of the government, and build it as cheaply as cash 
can build it, and keep the lands, reserving their proceeds 
as a sinking fund to meet the bonds, which may be made 
due thirty or forty years hence. We shall then have 
seventy or eighty million people ; and their redemption 
will be but a light tax on such a nation. During that 
period, in my judgment, it will have added hundreds of 
millions to the wealth of the country ; and the addition it 
will make to the power and strength of the Union is 
beyond the calculation of the human intellect." 

On the 18th of February he thus referred to the exist- 
ence of a party, little thought of at the time, which was 
ready to dissolve the Union : — 

" I am glad to hear the declarations made by the senator 
from South Carolina ; and I have no doubt they are sub- 
stantially correct. No doubt, a large portion of the people 
of the Southern States are opposed to the African slave- 
trade : but that there is a party, young, vigorous, and 
active, that wishes to open the slave-trade ; a party 
that wishes to extend the country into the tropics ; a 



254 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

party that believes not only in compnlsory labor in the 
tropics, but everywhere else ; a party that wishes to 
govern this country under that policy, and, failino; to do 
that, to establish a Southern confederacy, and dissolve this 
Union, — there is evidence. There is such a party. Now, 
I want tlie Senate, I want Congress, to sustain the contract 
made by the president : and let it be understood in the 
North and in the South, by all parties, that this country 
has branded the slave-trade ; that it can never be opened ; 
that the power and influence of this nation shall be used to 
put it down ; and that we will go to the full extent, not 
only of the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, to 
sustain this policy." 

In a personal interview with one of his friends, April 
25, 1859, Mr. Wilson, speaking of the members of the 
Senate, said, " Mr. Collamer of Vermont knows the most 
of politics, but has no oratory ; Fessenden of Maine is the 
best debater, but has no facts ; Seward is very able, and 
may run for president ; Toombs is indomitable ; Davis is 
high-spirited ; Yuiee and Gwin dre mercenary ; and John 
P. Hale is wide-awake, but not sufficiently industrious. 
The Senate of to-day is abler than the Senate of twenty 
years ago : few then entered into debate ; but all at 
present take a part, and evince ability. My own course 
for the last sixteen years has been one and straight : my 
constant aim has been to do the very best thing I could 
against slavery. In every party I have used my influence 
for this purpose. I aim to move straight forward in the 
Senate ; and my highest ambition is to have it said, when 
my career is over, ' He acted for the good of humanity 
and the rights of man.' I am no orator ; but my memory 
is retentive, and facts and pi-inciples I try to state with 
accuracy and clearness." He was then in the best of health 



TEMPERANCE FESTIVAL. 255 

and spirits, and preparing speeches — one on Cuba, an- 
other on the District of Columbia — for the coming session. 

Although Mr. Wilson was so profoundly occupied in 
national affairs, he still took time to attend the gatherings 
and to mingle in the innocent diversions of the people. Of 
ceaseless activity, he seemed sometimes almost ubiquitous. 
Now we find him addressing the people at a picnic, now 
present at the examination of a school, and now telling 
stories at a temperance festival ; never seeking pleasure, 
but imparting it to multitudes of liis fellow-men as he went 
along. 

We meet him in May at a temperance festival at the 
Adams House, where to this sentiment, " Our countiy, 
— with wisdom in her councils, and temperance among 
her people, she shall command the respect and admiration 
of the world," — he is thus reported to have respond- 
ed:— 

" The hand of intemperance had, from his cliildhood, 
been laid upon him, and very early in life he had resolved 
to be temperate himself at all times. Twenty-seven years 
ago he signed the pledge, which he had ever since kept. 
He alluded to the intemperance which prevailed among 
the statesmen of the country, and said many of those men , 
were sinking under the baleful and withering curse. He 
wished that the words of the sentiment to which he had 
been called upon to respond had been reversed, and that 
it had read, ' wisdom among her people, and temperance 
in her councils.' He spoke in the highest terms of the 
Sons of Temperance in general, and the Crystal-fount 
Division in particular." 

Now we see him in the same month at the printers' 
banquet held at the Revere House, where to the senti- 
ment, " The National Legislature, — the right arm of 



256 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

the American people," — he made tliis appropriate re- 
sponse : — 

" The National Legislature deserved all that was said of 
it in that sentiment. If there was a class of men wlio 
voted long speeches a bore, it was printers. He would, 
therefore, be short. He spoke of his knowledge of printers 
as gathered from his connection with a newspaper nine or 
ten years ago. There was no class of men that toiled with 
more fidelity, or should receive more support from every 
citizen. He saw here men from all parts of the country, 
and especially the men from other States who often set up 
very unpleasant allusions to him (laughter) : he welcomed 
them warmly, one and all, and closed with, — 

"The National Printers' Union, — May its laudable 
efforts to promote the interests, elevate the position, and 
improve the characters, of the printers of the United States, 
be crowned with abundant success ! " 

A few days afterwards (June 1) he was present at a 
meeting in honor of Mr. Paul Morpliy, the American 
chess-player, at the same hotel, where, on the announce- 
ment of the tenth regular toast, " Our national repre- 
sentatives, — their position gives them a special interest in 
national success," — he most fittingly replied, " I suppose we 
all feel proud of the achievements of our American repre- 
sentatives in the Old World. We all unite to do honor 
to him who has achieved honor for the American nation 
abroad. As we have read of his brilliant achievements 
with pride and admiration, we have loved him because he 
has been throughout a modest and quiet American gentle- 
man. Surrounded as Mr. Morphy has been by royalty, 
learning, and genius, in all his splendid triumphs he has 
borne himself with modesty, and he ought to be welcomed 
by every American. We have witnessed here to-night 



ORATION AT LAWRENCE. 257 

his modest demeanor and noble carriaoe witli pleasure. In 
conclusion, he gave this sentiment : " The modest bearing 
of your guest, — worthy the imitation of American schol- 
ars, artists, jurists, and statesmen, who uphold the intellect- 
ual character of America among the nations." 

Among other labors in the summer of this year, Mr. 
Wilson delivered an eloquent oration on the celebration 
of the 4th of July by the civil authorities and people 
of the city of Lawrence, Mass. The preparations for 
the occasion were extensive, the expectations of the vast 
throng of people high ; but they were more than realized 
in the patriotic fervor and the manly eloquence of the 
speaker. His introduction breathes the very spirit of the 
founders of our civil liberty. In it he says, — 

"To-day, fellow-citizens, the golden light of the eighty- 
third anniversary of ' the day of deliverance ' is above 
and around us ; to-day ' the rays of ravishing light and 
glory,' which gladdened the soul of the impassioned 'Co- 
lossus of independence ' amidst the storm and blood of 
civil war, flash upon the glowing faces of twenty-five mil- 
hons of American freemen, whose hearts swell with patri- 
otic pride on the return of this anniversary of the birthday 
of the republic. Over this broad land, from the shores 
which first welcomed the weary feet of the Pilgrims to 
the golden sands which have lured their descendants to 
the distant shores of the Pacific, throughout the vast 
breadth of our ever-expanding republic, age with its 
ripe and rich experiences, manhood in the maturity and 
vigor of its powers, and youth with its fresh hopes and 
glowing aspirations, are joyfully mingling in the scenes, 
j associations, and memories of this 'anniversary festival' 
;of the ' most memorable epoch in the history of America.' 
jTo-day the teeming millions of America, in her cities, vil- 



2;)8 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

lages, and liamlets, on her broad prairies, rich valleys, and 
laufrliing hillsides, and by her mountains, lakes, and rivers, 
welcome with exultant hearts this day, on which we give 
a truce to the strifes of sentiment and opinion, passion 
and interest, and remember only that we* are all Ameri- 
cans, the citizens of the foremost republic of the world." 

Having described the spirit which prompted the Declara- 
tion of Independence, he proceeds : — 

""These sublime ideas of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence express the whole creed of the equality of humanity, 
the basis of government, and the rights of the people. They 
speak to the universal heart of mankind. They declare to 
kings and princes, and nobles and statesmen, ' Govern- 
ments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, to secure the inalienable 
rights of men to liberty ; ' they proclaim to toiling millions, 
' Whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish 
it; ' they utter in the hungry ears of lowly bondmen, 'All 
men are created equal,' and ' endowed with the inalienable 
rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' These 
' self-evident truths ' may be hated and spurned by the 
monarch, in the arrogance of unrestricted power ; they 
m«ay be scoffed at and jeei'ed at by the noble, hedged about 
with ancient privileges ; they may be limited, qualified, or 
denied, by the ignoble politician, whose apostasy is revealed 
and rebuked by the brilliancy of their steady light ; they 
may be sneered at as ' glittering generalities ' by the nerve- 
less conservative, who ' has ever opposed every useful re- 
form, and wailed over every rotten institution as it fell : ' 
but they live in the throbbing hearts of the toiling mil- 
lions, and they nurse the wavering hopes of hapless bond- 
men amidst the thick gloom of rayless oppression. When 



ORATION AT LAWRENCE. 209 

the Christian shall erase from the book of life the precious 
words, ' Do unto others as ye would that others should do 
unto you,' ' Love thy neiglibor as thyself,' then may the 
sincere lover of human freedom blur, blot, and erase from 
the language of humanity these immortal words embodied 
by our fathers in the Declaration of the 4th of July, 1776. 
These words, these ideas, which underlie the institutions 
of the republic, associate the name of America with the 
cause of universal freedom and progress all over the globe. 
We may be recreant to these ideas ; we may ignobly fail: 
but the incorporation of these sacred ideas with the char- 
ter of national independence will bear the name of the 
North-American republic down to coming ages, and win 
for it the grateful homage and lasting remembrance of 
mankind." 

Announcing his theme as " Our country at that period 
and our country of to-day," he said, — 

" How wonderful the contrast ! The thirteen colonies 
of that day iiave expanded into thirty-three sovereign 
i commonwealths, — ghttering constellations that revolve in 
j their orbits round the great central sun of the North- 
I American Union. The two and a half millions of British 
colonists that timidly clung to the shores of the seas have 
multiplied into twenty-five millions of freemen, who have 
crossed the ridges of the AUeghanies, spread over the broad 
basin of the Great Lakes, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, 
and passed through the defiles of tlie Rocky Mountains to 
the golden shores of the Pacific. The weak confederacy of 
dependent colonies has developed into a central Union, — 
la National Government, — whose name is known to the 
'nations, and whose power is acknowledged by all mankind. 
■Upon the soil where stood two and a halt milHons of colo- 
inists to meet the shock of battle in defence of perilled lib- 



2G0 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON." 

erty stand two and a half millions of enrolled men, ready to 
leap at the summons of patriotism, to hurl into the seas any 
force that shall press the soil of the republic with hostile 
feet. 

" The territory embraced in the thirteen colonies on the 
Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies on the 4th of July, 1776, 
contained less than three hundred thousand square miles : 
to-day the territory embraced within the boundaries of tlie 
Union exceeds three millions of square miles. The boun- 
daries of the republic are to be still farther extended. 
Unroll the map of North America, trace out upon that 
map the boundaries of other powers, study their position, 
and comprehend their condition and character, and the 
conviction will flash upon the mind that expansion is the 
destiny of the United States. God grant that this inevi- 
table expansion may be in harmony with justice, with a 
scrupulous regard for the rights of other nations and races, 
and with the equal rights of mankind ! 

" Great as has been the extension of the limits of tlie 
country, population has kept abreast of that extension. 
The sun of the 4th of July, 1776, went down on less 
than two and a half millions of freemen : to-day the sun 
casts his beams on twenty-five millions of freemen in 
America. The accumulation of wealth has more than 
kept pace with the extension of territory and the increase 
of population. The wealth of the thirteen colonies in 1776 
did not exceed the wealth of the young Commonwealth of 
Ohio in 1859 : the value of the real and personal property 
in the United States is now estimated at eleven thousand 
millions of dollars. Under the restrictive and repressive 
colonial policy of England, the annual productive industry 
of the colonies was small indeed: now it is estimated at 
three thousand millions of dollars, five hundred millions 



OKATION AT LAWRENCE. 261 

of winch are exchanged between the States, and three hun- 
dred milUons exported to foreign lands. This extension of 
territory, this increase of population, this accumulation of 
wealth, far transcends all the most comprehensive minds 
ever conceived, and baffles even the predictions of enthu- 
siasts. 

" At the dawn of the Revolution, agriculture was the 
chief occupation of the people ; but the condition of the 
colonies limited the quality and value of production : now 
more than three hundred millions of acres are devoted to 
agriculture ; these farms and plantations are valued at 
four thousand millions, tilled by four millions of men, and 
produce nearly eighteen hundred millions of products. 

" The narrow colonial and commercial policy of England 
limited the variety, checked the production, and depressed 
the value, of manufactures and the mechanic arts in 
America. British manufacturers demanded the monopoly 
of the colonial markets ; British navigation demanded the 
monopoly of the carrying-trade of the colonies. Manufac- 
tures and mechanic arts, commerce and navigation, lan- 
guished under the depressing effects of British legislation. 
The ships the mechanics of New England and New York 
launched upon the deep were not permitted to carry to their 
markets the rice, indigo, and tobacco of the South ; and 
these ships were forced to seek the products of Continental 
lEurope, of Asia, and the Orient, in the storehouses of 
England. 

" In 1850 the capital invested in more than a hundred 
housand establishments was five hundred and thirty 
Inillions, the number of persons employed more than a 
'nillion, and the value of the production more than a 
'housand millions. In 1776 the cotton-plant bloomed un- 
l;atliered, and its manufacture was haixliy known : now 



262 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

more than seven hundred thousand acres, tilled by nearly 
nine hundred thousand persons, are devoted to its culture ; 
and the capital invested in its manufacture is more than eighty 
millions, the number of persons engaged in its manufac- 
ture a hundred thousand, and the value of the production 
seventy millions. At the opening of the war of independ- 
ence, the imports and exports, burdened by the repressive 
commercial policy of England, did not exceed the trade 
with the British Provinces on the north at this time ; and 
these imports and exports were chiefly monopolized by 
British navigation : now our imports and exports amount 
annually to six hundred millions of dollars ; and the annual 
arrivals and clearances are forty thousand, with an inward 
and outward tonnage of eleven millions of tons. The 
tonnage of the United States is more than five millions of 
tons, — equal to the tonnage of the Britsh empire. 

" When the Declaration was sent abroad over the land, 
the means of transportation, communication, and travel, were 
of the most limited description. Beyond the shores of the 
seas and the banks of the streams, mere bridle-paths, 
often following the trails of the sons of the forest, 
were the avenues of travel. Now the avenues of trans- 
portation have multiplied almost beyond comprehension. 
Five thousand miles of canals, tliirty thousand miles of 
railway, forty-five thousand miles of telegraph, five million 
tons of shipping, fifteen hundred steamers, which annually 
transport forty millions of passengers, afford the amplest 
facilities for rapid communication. . . . 

" Then religious strifes, growing out of the conflicting 
claims of rival sects for supremacy in some of the colonies, 
and the poverty and scattered condition of the people in 
others, limited the means of moral instruction : now reli- 
gion is wholly divorced from the corruptions of power ; all 



ORATION AT LAWRENCE. 263 

forms of faith are protected by equal laws ; and forty thou- 
sand churches — costing nearly a hundred millions of 
dollars, in which fifteen millions of people may be seated, 
and in which more than thirty thousand clergymen instruct 
the people in the duties of life — point their spires toward the 
skies. Religious and philanthropic associations annually 
scatter among the people millions of publications for the 
moral culture of the people. Humane institutions, al- 
most unknown when the nation commenced its independ- 
ent existence, have been founded, where the children of 
misfortune, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the insane, and 
the sons and daughters of toil, find shelter from the storms 
of life. . . . 

" When independence was proclaimed, less than forty 
newspapers spread the immortal words among the people ; 
and these journals were small in size, and of limited circu- 
lation : on this eighty-third anniversary, nearly three 
thousand newspapers are printed in America, having a 
circulation of six millions, and annually scattering broad- 
cast nearly six hundred millions of copies, — more copies 
than are printed by the two most powerful nations of the 
globe, France and England. At the dawn of the Revolu- 
tion, periodical literature was hardly known : now two hun- 
dred periodicals, devoted to literature, science, and art, to 
religion, law, politics, manufactures, commerce, agriculture, 
mechanics, and the moral, intellectual, and material interests 
of society, are published ; and the circulation of these peri- 
odicals is immense, amounting to many millions annually. 
These three thousand periodicals and journals, which the 
prolific press of America scatters among the people, give 
to them the ideas, inventions, discoveries, arts, facts, and 
events, at rates so low as to bring .them within the reach 
of the toiling masses. 



264 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

"At the opening of the Revolutionary contest, books 
were rare and dear, — beyond the reach of the masses of 
the people ; only a few small libraries had been created : 
now the public libraries, exclusive of those of schools 
and institutions of learning, contain more than six millions 
of volumes. The rarest and choicest works find a place 
in the private libraries which the increasing wealth, taste, 
and refinement of the people are creating. , The American 
press, hardly a power at the opening of the contest for 
national existence, now annually publishes more than a 
thousand new works, and more than nine millions of vol- 
umes. The works of the profoundest and the ripest 
intellects in the Old World and the New, in ancient and 
modern times, are now, by the ceaseless activity of the 
American press, placed before the people at prices so low, 
that all can hold communion with the mighty minds of the 
living and with the dead. The great living authors of 
England and of France are read hardly less in America 
than in their native lands. Before the Revolution, there 
were a few scholars of research and learning, of genius and 
taste ; but they had contributed little to literature, science, 
or art. America has achieved a position in the republic 
of letters which gives assurance of a brilliant future ; and 
she has given to the world some of the noblest names that 
grace the literature, science, and art of the age. 

" These statistics of wealth, of production, of material 
advancement, of churches, schools, libraries, and journals, 
give us some idea of the vast resources and abounding 
means now possessed by the people of America for moral 
and intellectual culture and physical well-being. 

" This rapid advancement of the republic in all the 
elements of power, this lofty position achieved within the 
brief space of one human life, this consummated result, 



ORATION AT LAWRENCE. 265 

which places America among the foremost powers of tlie 
globe, make the hearts of our countrymen, wherever they 
may be, on the ocean or on the land, throb with patriotic 
joy and pride ; and they give this day to memory, exul- 
tation, and hope," 

Referring to the subject ever ujipermost in his mind, he 
said, — 

" But to the thoughtful patriot who loves his country, 
who would make that country an example to the nations ; 
to the lover of human freedom, who would extend its sway 
over the globe ; to the Christian philanthropist, whose 
heart ever throbs for the welfare of the children of men, — 
this hallowed anniversary, so glorious in its memories of 
the past, its realities of the present, and its hopes of the 
future, is not one of unmingled joy. Within the limits of 
the ri'public, four milHons of mankind are bending to-day 
beneath the nameless woes of perpetual servitude ; and, 
■while the self-evident truths of the great charter of rights 
are upon our lips, the humiliating consciousness flashes 
upon our souls, that fleeing bondmen are shrinking away 
in the glens and forests from the echoes of the glad voices 
of general rejoicing, watching for the going-down of the 
sun, so that their weary eyes may gaze upon the north 
stir, whose steady light they anxiously hope will guide 
their aching feet to that land beyond the Great Lakes and 
the St. Lawrence, where the shackle falls and the voice 
of the master is not heard. 

" This ' odious and abominable trade,' this ' inhuman 
and accursed traffic,' which Daniel Webster summoned the 
country to ' put beyond the circle of human sympathies 
and human regards,' now flourishes in defiant mockery of 
the laws of the country and the public opinion of the 
Christian and civilized world." 

23 



266 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

He closed his eloquent address with these hopeful 
words : — 

"Though deeds of injustice, Inhumanity, lawlessness, 
and oppression, darken our horizon, casting their saddening 
influences over the festivities of this anniversary, the les- 
son of this day is the lesson of hope, not of despair. Upon 
America, our country, and, with all her ftmlts, the land of 
our affections and pride, are centred the best hopes of 
mankind. To what portion of the globe, to what land 
under the whole heavens, can the friend of human prog- 
ress, of equal and universal liberty, this day turn with 
more of hope and confidence than to this magnificent 
continental empire, this broad land of wondrous fertility, 
where Providence has garnered illimitable resources to be 
developed for human prosperity, power, and happiness ; 
this democratic republic, with achieved free institutions 
based upon the rights of human nature, with millions of 
people trained in self-government, and in full possession 
of the citadel of consummated power, — the ballot-box ; 
where the loving heart, the enlightened conscience, the 
unclouded reason, of man, can utter their voices for humane 
and equal laws, and for their wise and impartial adminis- 
tration ? ' Our country,' said that illustrious supporter of 
the rights of mankind, John Quincy Adams, ' begati her 
existence by the proclamation of the universal emancipa- 
tion of man from the thraldom of man.' In support of 
that glorious proclamation, our fathers were summoned to 
walk the path of duty ; and they obeyed the call, though 
it was swept by British cannon, darkened by the storm of 
battle, and sprinkled with the blood of falling comrades. 
We honor their sublime devotion ; we applaud their heroic 
deeds. Their bright example of devotion to principle, and 
fidelity to duty, should incite us of this age in America to 



THE JOHN BROWN RAID. 267 

accept joyfully and bravely the responsibilities of our posi- 
tion, and, like them, be ever ready 

' To take 
Occasion by the hand, and make 
The bounds of freedom wider yet.' " 

To the raid of John Brown into Virginia in October 
(1859), causing wild excitement through the South, and 
tei-minating in the death of the invader, Mr. Wilson was 
from principle opposed. He had often made the declara- 
tion, that even Congress had no right to interfere with 
slavery in the slave States ; and in this position he firmly 
stood. An attempt was made in the Senate, Dec. 6, to 
prove that he was in sympathy with those who would 
resort to force for the liberation of the slave, by showing 
that he was present at a meeting of the citizens of Natick 
on the 29th of November, in which was passed, without 
opposition on his part, the resolution, " That it is the right 
and duty of the slaves to resist their masters." To this 
imputation he replied : — 

" During the canvass in New York, I spent two weeks 
there, and addressed tens of thousands of people ; and my 
speeches were reported in full two or three times. In 
those speeches I expressed my views in regard to this raid 
of John Brown at Harper's Ferry fully and explicitly. I 
returned to my home on the day preceding the election in 
my State ; and I addressed a very large meeting of the 
citizens of my town for two hours on general political 
topics, and fully on this matter in regard to the Harper's- 
Ferry affair. ... In the town where I live we have 
more than a thousand voters. We have some ten or 
twenty men who are radical abolitionists. Some of them 
were present. TJiey did not interrupt me nor the meeting. 



268 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Wlien the meeting liad ended, they said to their neigli- 
bors and friends, and some of tliem came to me and said, 
that they disngreed with me entirely, and would have 
somebody there to put the other side of the question. A 
short time afterwards, Mr. Henry C. Wright, a Garrison 
abolitionist, who is a professed disunionist, a no-govern- 
ment man, a non-resistant, came to speak in my town. 
The ])opuIation of the |)lace went to hear him, and crowded 
the hall. Most of the active Democrats in the town were 
present. The postmaster was present, and sat close by 
me. The resolutions were offered by Mr. Wright ; and he 
made a non-resistant speech in favor of resistance. 
(Laughter.) He went on to explain how the thing could 
be done. He said ire would not shed a drop of human 
blood to free every slave in the country. 

" Alter he closed his speech, the question was put, and 
perhaps filteen or twenty persons in that meeting of seven 
or eight hundred voted for the resolution. All the rest, 
feeling that Mr. Wright's friends had paid for the hall, and 
got up the meeting for him and for themselves, took no 
part for or against him. They did not interrupt the meet- 
ing ; believing as they did, and as we do in our part ot the 
country, in the absolute right of free discussion of all 
questions. When the meeting adjourned, the general ex- 
pression was that the resolution was a very ioolish one, 
and for which Mr. Wright and his friends were alone re- 
sponsible. Nine-tenths of tiiat meeting took no part in it. 
They did not wish to interrupt the meeting, or interfere 
with it in any way whatever, or be responsible for it. 
There were present gentlemen as sound on the slavery 
question as the senator from Mississippi could desire. The 
postmaster of that town is as sound on the slavery ques- 
tion as the senator from Mississippi, and often manifests his 



THE JOHN BROWN EAID. 269 

zoal in dofence of the policy of the slave power ; but lie 
did not say a word, nor did those who act with him, be- 
cause nobody wished to interfere with those who had 
invited the speaker there, and who arrreed with him in his 
general opinions. Senators should remember that the 
right to hold meetings, and to utter opinions upon all 
matters of public concern, is an acknowledged right in my 
section of the country. They should remember, also, that 
the people in that section often attend meetings where 
subjects are discussed in a way they do not sanction ; but 
they do not think it becomes gentlemen to interrupt such 
meetings, or interfere with those who diflPer from them. 
Oiten do I attend such meetings, and listen to what is said, 
without feeling myself in any way responsible for what is 
said or done : so do the people of my State. I wish the 
people of other sections of the country would thus cherish 
the sacred right of free discussion." 

So, in reply to the remarks of Mr. Iverson, he said 
in the Senate, Dec. 8, — 

" The sentiment in my State approaches unanimity in 
condemnation of the raid of John Brown. If there be 
any man in Massachusetts, especially any Republican in 
Massachusetts, who upholds or justifies that act, he has 
my unqualified opposition and condemnation. But, sir, 
I wish to deal frankly with senators on the other side, and 
to say that the sentiment of my State approaches una- 
nimity in sympathy for the fiite of the leader of that invasion. 
It springs mainly and chiefly from what happened after 
that event, during his imprisonment, his trial, and his 
execution. His words, his letters, his bearing, every thing 
about him, extorted admiration from friends and foes." 

Such had been Senator Wilson's steady, able, and con- 
sistent defence of the rights of the Northern people and of 



270 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

those in bondage, tliat on tlie twelfth day of June, 18G0, 
both branches of the General Court x)f Massachusetts passed 
a resolution honorable alike to the sentiment of the repre- 
sentatives of the people and to him : — 

'''■Resolved^ That the thanks of this legislature, acting as 
the agents of the people, be and are hereby tendered to the 
Hon. Henry Wilson for his able, fearless, and always 
prompt defence of the great principles of human freedom 
while acting as a senator and a citizen of the Old Bay 
State." 

" Approved June 16, 1860 : 

" Nathaniel P. Banks." 

On his amendment to the Naval Appropriation Bill for 
the purchase of three steam-vessels for the suppression of 
the African slave-trade, Mr. Wilson, true to his noble 
record, made on the 18th of June, 1860, a strong speech, in 
which he presents a mass of startling facts in respect to the 
re-opening of this iniquitous business. " The senator from 
Virginia (Mr. Mason) asks how it is," says he, " that the 
slave-trade has been revived in the cities of the North. He 
does not understand why this traffic in men should be re- 
renewed at this time by persons residing in this country. 
I think, sir, it is all very plain. We have had in this 
country during the past six years an immense pressure for 
the extension of slavery into the Territories, and for the 
supremacy of slavery in the councils of the government. 
To extend slavery, to secure its controlling influence over 
the government, ancient restrictions have been abrogated, 
and lawless violence and frauds have been resorted to by 
unscrupulous men ready to sacrifice every right that stood 
in the way of their schemes of expansion and dominion. 



THE SLAVE-TEADE. 271 

The senator from Virginia himself proclaimed on this floor 
that the slaveholding States had the right to tiie natural 
expansion of slavery on this continent as an element of 
political power. Does the senator suppose that these efforts 
to expand human slavery over this continent for the 
avowed purpose of strengthening the power of slave- 
masters over the National Government have ho influence 
over men ever ready to do any work of inhumanity or 
crime to fill their coffers with gold ? 

" Sir, these efforts to extend human slavery in America, 
these attempts to increase the power of slavery in the 
councils of the nation, these discussion sin these halls and 
in the public journals, these deeds of fraud and violence, 
have had tiieir demoralizing effects upon the country. 
When the senator from Virginia finds that men engaged 
in this inhuman traffic cannot be convicted, that juries 
fail, that judges pervert the laws, that public journals and 
public men demand the abrogation of treaty stipulations 
and the modification or repeal of all laws branding the 
slave-trade as piracy, why should he be surprised that io 
Northern commercial cities, in the great city of New York, 
there should be found men to invest capital to fit out ships, 
to send vessels to the coast of Africa, to engage in a traffic, 
which, if successful, fills their purses with coveted gold ? 
Why should not men be found in that great commercial 
city as ready to violate law, the rights of human nature, 
and feelings of humanity, to win gold, as to aid in the 
work of slavery expansion and dominion in America for 
the poor boon of official patronage? Surely the ex- 
perienced senator from Virginia cannot be surprised at the 
readiness of men to do mean and wicked deeds for slavery. 
The senator has often seen how ready men are, even in 
these chambers, to do whatever slavery requires of them. 



272 LITE OF 'HENRY WILSON. 

The senator, the other day, reported in favor of returnino; 
to my colleague a petition presented by him of coloi'i'd 
citizens of Massachusetts. In this the senator had the 
ready support of tlie senator from Indiana (Mr. Fitch). 
When the honorable senator from Virginia finds the 
senator from Indiana not only ready to engage in- an act 
like that, — an act which violates the constitutional rights 
of men and the rights of a senator of a sovereign State, — 
but willing to make an insulting motion, accompanied by 
impertinent remarks toward the senator who, in the dis- 
charge of public duty, presented the petition, why should 
he not suppose that other men can be found willing to do 
any work in the hiterests of slavery ? When the senator 
from Virginia sees the pliancy and alacrity of the senator 
from Indiana in this work of suppressing the petitions of 
the colored citizens of a sovereign Commonwealth, why 
should he not suppose that men may be found in other 
Northern States ready to engage in the slave-trade ? 

" It cannot be matter of surprise to senators that men 
in our great commercial cities, especially New York, should 
engage with renewed zeal in the slave-trade. Men ever 
ready to clutch at every opportunity to fill their purses 
with gold, no matter how it is to be won, could not 
fail to be influenced to embark in the unlawful and inhu- 
man slave-trade by the change which has been going on 
in the public mind in regard to this traffic in men. We 
cannot disguise the fact, that a great change of sentiment 
has been going on in this country with regard to the slave- 
trade." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NOMINATION OF MR. LINCOLN. THE PARAMOUNT 

QUESTION BETWEEN THE PARTIES. HOW SHOULD 

WORKING-MEN VOTE? HIS COURSE IN THE EVENT 

OF DISUNION. HIS RELATIONS TO MR. DAVIS. 

THE CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE. LETTERS. 

Mr. Lincoln nominated. — Mr. Wilson's En rgy in his Support. — Speech at 
Myrick's. — East Boston. - Free and Slave Labor. — Letter of Mr. Packard. — 
Secession of the Southern States. — Mr. Wilson Fearless. — Speech in the 
Senate. — Labors in the Military Committee with Mr. Davis. — He foresees 
a tremendous Contest. — His Position. — Great Speech on Mr. Crittenden's 
Compromise. — Letters from Mr. Whittier, Mrs. L. M. Child, Gerrit Smith, 
Amasa Walker. — Vote of Thanks. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was nominated for the presi- 
dency by the Republicans in convention at Chicago 
in the month of May, 1860 ; and John C. Breckinridge in 
April following, at Charleston, S.C., by the proslavery 
Democrats. The other candidates were John Bell and 
Stephen A. Douglas. The main question between the two 
leading parties was freedom, or slavery, in the immense 
Territories of the Union ; or, in other words, shall free, or 
servile, labor have the ascendency in this country ? Long 
and carefully, both in and out of Congress, had Mr. Wilson 
studied this qtiestion under every form and bearing ; long 
liad he contemplated the tremendous interests involved 
in the issue of the question ; and he therefore threw him- 



274 LIFE OP HEKRY WILSON. 

self into the contest with unfaltering energy, addressing 
vast and enthusiastic audiences in many States with elo- 
quent and effective words of warning, connsel, and en- 
couragement. In an address at Myrick's Junction, Mass., 
on the 18th of September, in reference to the paramount 
question of the parties, he said, — 

" Issues growing out of the existence of human slavery 
in America are now the paramount issues before the nation. 
Shall slavery continue to expand ? shall it continue to guide 
the counsels of the republic? or shall its expansion be 
arrested, its power broken, and it forced to retire under 
the cover of the local laws under which it exists? These 
issues loom up before the nation, dwarfing all other issues, 
and subordinating all other questions. Public men and 
political organizations are forced to accept the transcendent 
issues growing out of the existence of slavery in America. 

" The American Democracy, which for twenty-five years 
has borne the banners of slavery, won its victories, and 
siiared in its crimes against humanity, though broken into 
fragments, struggles on, faithful still to the interests of sla- 
very. Breckinridge and Lane accept the creed of slavery 
expansion, slavery protection, and slavery domination ; 
Douglas ' don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
down ; ' and Johnson, commended by the Massachusetts 
Democracy at Springfield for his ' honest and fearless prom- 
ulgation of Democratic truth,' proclaims that it 'is best 
that capital should own labor.' The American Democracy, 
demoralized by slavery, has ceased to speak of the rights 
of man : it now speaks only of the rights of property in 
man. The Republican party, brought into existence by 
the aggressions of slavery upon freedom, cherishing the 
faith of the founders of the republic, and believing with 
their chosen leader, Abraham Lincoln, that ' he who would 



THE PARAISIOUNT QUESTION. 275 

be no slave must consent to have no slave,' pledges itself, 
all it is, all it hopes to be, to arrest the extension of slavery, 
banish it from the Territories, dethrone its power in the 
National Government, and force it back under the cover of 
State sovereignty." 

After giving the proslavery record of Mr. Bell, he closed 
by these strong words : — 

" Men of old Puritan and Revolutionary Massachusetts, 
upon whose pathway the star of duty casts its radia-iit and 
steady light, — you who believe with Benjamin Franklin, 
that ' slavery is an atrocious debasement of human iKiture ; ' 
with John Adams, that ' consenting to slavery is a sac- 
rilegious breach of trust ; ' with John Quincy Adams, 
that ' slavery taints the very sources of moral principle ; ' 
with Daniel Webster, that ' slavery is a continual and 
permanent violation of human rights,' ' opposed to the 
whole spirit of the gospel and to the teachings of Jesus 
Christ,' — reject, I pray you, reject with loathing, the false 
and guilty doctrine, that, in this crisis of the republic, 'it 
is the part of patriotism and duty to recognize no political 
principle ; ' turn from a candidate whose record is blurred, 
blotted, and stained with words and deeds for human sla- 
very ; spurn with scorn all affiliation with men who in 
the South are vying with the slave-code Democracy in 
fealty to the slave propagandists, — who in the North are 
scoffing and jeering at the sacred cause of liberty, organ- 
izing Democratic-aid societies, peddling and dickering with 
Democratic factions, to defeat men whose only offence is 
their unswerving fidelity to the cause of human nature 
now in peril in America, and ' consecrating,' in the words 
of Whittier, 

' their baseness to the cause 
Of Constiftition, Union, and the Laws.' 



276 LtFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" Rally, men of Massachusetts, to the standard of a party 
that proclaims its principles and its policy, — a party that 
would engrave in letters of living light upon the arches of 
the skies, so that the nations might read it, its undying hos- 
tility to the domination and extension of slavery in Ameri- 
ca. Rally to the support of a candidate for the chief 
magistracy of the republic who penned these noble words : 
' This is a world of compensations; and he who would be 
no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny 
freedom to others deserve it not for themselves ; and, un- 
der a just God, cannot long retain it.' " 

On the question, •■' How ought working-men to vote ? " 
Mr. Wilson said, contrasting free with servile labor, in a 
speech of signal force delivered at East Boston on the 24th 
of October, — 

" Self-interest, self-respect, the love he bears his wife, 
and the hopes centred in those who inherit his blood and 
bear his name, all urge, press, command, the poor man, the 
mechanic, the laboring-man, to rush to the ballot-box on 
the 6tli of November, and vote to take the government of 
his country from the unhallowed grasp of men, who, by 
word and deed, have proved themselves the mortal enemies 
of free labor and free-laboring men, and to place that gov- 
ernment in the hands of statesmen who will maintain the 
rights, interests, and dignity of free labor. 

" Glancing over this assemblage of the freemen of East 
Boston, I see before me the manly forms of toiling men, 
who, through weary days and sleepless nights of personal 
toil, have won for themselves positions of independence, or 
who now, by the scanty wages of manual labor, support 
themselves and the dear and loved ones of their household. 
And I say to you, men of Massachusetts, slavery is the 
unappeasable enemy of the free labonng-men of America, 



HOW SHOULD WORKING-MEN VOTE V 277 

of the North and of the South. Ay, I repeat, sla- 
very is the unappeasable enemy of the free laboring-men 
of America, of the North and of the South. The party 
tliat upholds slavery in America, that would extend its 
boundaries, increase its influence and its power, is the mor- 
tal enemy of the free white laboring-men of the United 
States. I declare to you, men of Massachusetts, and, if I 
could be heard, I would proclaim it in the ear of every 
laboring-man in America, the slavery of the black man 
has degraded labor and the white laboring-man of the 
South, and dishonored the white laboj-ing - man of the 
North. Some writer (I think it was Carlyle) has said that 
the Indian away on the shores of Lake VVinni])eg cannot 
strike his dusky mate but the world feels the blow. Put 
the brand of degradation upon the brow of one working- 
man, and the toiling millions of the globe share in that 
degradation. Slavery makes labor dishonorable, puts the 
brand of degradation upon the brow of manual labor, free 
as well as slave, blights the homes of the free laboring 
white men of the South, and casts its baleful shadows over 
the homes, the fields, and the workshops of the laboring- 
men of the North. 

" In 1620 — two hundred and forty years ago — freedom 
and slavery came to the shores of America. Freedom 
took the rugged soil and still more rugged clime of the 
North : slavery took the genial clime and sunny lands of 
the South. Freedom, starting from Plymouth, has ad- 
vanced with steady step westward, crossed the Rocky 
Mountains to the shores of the Pacific seas, founding com- 
monwealths which recognize the eternal laws of man's 
being : slavery, starting from Jamestown, has advanced 
westward and southward into the depths of the continent, 

24 



278 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

founding States of privilege ^nd caste. Tlie results of these 
two antagonistic systems are plain to the comprehension of 
all men. 

" Here, in these free commonwealths, are twenty millions 
of freemen, with free speech, free press, free schools, free 
churches, and free institutions. Here all questions that 
concern humanity are examined and discussed by the un- 
fettered press and the free thoughts and words of men. 
Here ' labor,' in the words of Daniel Webster, ' looks up 
and is proud in the midst of its toil.' Here the laboring- 
man, who daily goes forth with a brave heart to toil for his 
loved ones, wins not only bread by the sweat of his face, 
but the applauding voice of men who honor labor, who 
believe the laborer is worthy of his hire. Here the toil 
of the working-man is lightened by ennobling motives, by 
aspirations which expand the mind and elevate the soul. 
The toil which wearies his arm is to make glad the home 
of wife and children ; to smooth adown the declivity of 
life the steps of parents to whom he owes his being ; to lift 
the burdens of life from brother, sister, or friend ; or to win 
for him competence, independence, positions of power, the 
lofty and glittering prizes of ambition. Here the laboring- 
men in all the fields of manly toil are working out a con- 
dition of society for the toiling masses more elevated than 
can be found in any other portion of the globe. Here 
agriculture, commerce, manufactures, the mechanic arts, 
churches, schools, libraries, the institutions of a refining 
civilization, flourish in vigor and strength. Such are the 
magnificent results of freedom in the North. 

" The results of slavery in the South glare upon us from 
every rood of the land stained by its existence. The 
fruits of slavery are bitter to the taste, and sickening to the 



HOW SHOULD WORKING-MEN VOTE? 279 

soul of man. There are auction-blocks, where man made 
in the image of God is sold like the beasts that perish ; 
there are chains and fetters for human limbs, whips to 
scourge and torture the body, and laws to debase and bru- 
talize the mind and soul of man. There labor is dishon- 
ored, laborers degraded, despised. ' To work,' said Wil- 
liam Ellery Channing, ' in sight of the whip, under menace 
of blows, is to be exposed to perpetual insult and degrading 
influences. Every motion of the limbs which such a men- 
ace urges is a wound to the soul.' To work beside the 
bondmen urged on to toil by the menace of blows de- 
grades the poor white laborer to the abject condition of 
the slave. To continually eat the bread of enforced and 
unrequited toil, to look upon labor extorted by the menace 
of the lash, upon the laborer thus degraded, excites in the 
bosom of the slave-master that scorn for manual labor, 
and that contempt for laboring-men, now so manifest in 
the slave States of republican America. 

The deterioration, exhaustion, and desolation of the soil 
of the South, under the culture of unskilled, untutored, 
unrewarded slave-labor, stands confessed by even the 
cham|)ions of that cleaving curse. Thousands of square 
miles, millions of acres of the best soil of the Western 
world, have been blighted, blasted, desolated, by the pollut- 
ing footsteps of the bondman. The champions of slavery, 
men who would eternize it, extend its boundaries and its 
dominion over the National Government, have borne testi- 
mony to the desolating effects of the Southern system of 
agriculture, which means the Soutl>ern slave-labor system, 
upon the most prolific soil of the continent. . . . 

" Breckinridge," he said, " bears aloft the banner of sla- 
very expansion, slavery protection, and slavery domina- 
tion ; and around that black flag rallies the Democratic 



230 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

masses of the South, and the men of the North who believe 
with Mr. Buchanan that ' the master has the right to take 
his slaves into the Territories as property, and liave it pro- 
tected there under the Federal Constitution;' that 'nei- 
ther Congress nor the Territorial legislature, nor any 
human power, has any authority to annul or impair that 
vested right.' Benjamin F. Hallett tells the assembled 
Breckinridge Democracy of Massachusetts that there can 
never be a successful Democratic party in the free States : 
so he goes with the slave-code Democracy of the South. 
There can never be a successful Democratic j)arty in tiie 
North ! What an admission is this ! There can never be 
a successful Democratic party in the land of free speech, free 
press, free schools, free labor, and free educated working- 
men trained in self-government ! Successful Democracy 
buds and blooms only in the land of bondage, where the 
right to think, to discuss, to act, is not i-ecognized ; where 
labor is dishonored, and laboring-men despised ! Surely 
the working-men of the North can not, will not, sustain by 
their suffrages that false, foul, profane Democracy which 
draws its life, its soul, from slavery. 

" Douglas ' don't care whether slavery is voted down or 
voted up.' To him it is a matter of supreme indiffer- 
ence whether a million and a half of the square miles of 
America shall be gladdened by the footsteps and beautified 
by the hands of freemen, who acknowledge no man master ; 
or whether they shall be seared, blasted, desolated, by 

The old and chartered lie, 

The feudal curse, whose whips and yokes. 

Insult humanity.' 

" The laboring-men of the North, ay, and of the South 
too, should never forget nor forgive that heartless decla- 



now SHOULD WORKING-MEN VOTE? 281 

ration. The peerless Washingrton cared whether slavery 
was voted down or voted up in the Territories ; for he 
' trusted we should have a confederacy of free States,' and 
he deemed the ordinance of 1787 ' a wise measure.' Tlie 
working-man who votes the Douglas and Johnson ticket 
votes for a president who ' don't care whether slavery is 
voted down or voted up,' and for a vice-president who 
' believes capital should own labor.' Can a working-man, 
who eats his bread in the sweat of his face, give such a 
vote ? Such a vote would be a betrayal of the cause of 
the toiling masses of America, an act of self-humihatioa 
which should bring the blush of conscious shame to the 
cheek. 

" The Republican party, brouglit into being by the neces- 
sities of the country and the needs of the age, rejects the 
wicked dogma, that slaves, the creatures of local law, are 
recognized by the Constitution as property, that the Con- 
stitution of i-epublican America carries slavery wherever 
it goes, and that the national flag protects slavery wherever 
it waves.* Tlie Republican party ' cares whether slavery 
is voted down or voted up ' in the Territories, rejects witii 
horror the idea tiiat ' capital should own labor,' disowns the 
craven declaration that ' it is the part of patriotism and of 
duty to recognize no principle,' and bravely and hopefully 
accepts the duties now imposed upon the people of the 
United States by the providence of Almighty God. The 
Republican party proclaims its living faith in the self-evi- 
dent truths of the Declaration of Independence, now scoffed 
at and jeered at by the leaders of the slave Democracy as 
' rhetorical flourishes,' ' glittering generalities,' ' self-evident 
lies,' ' farragoes of nonsense,' pronounced by Breckinridge 
' abstractions,' which, if carried into practice, vvould ' lead 
our country rapidly to destruction,' and declared by Doug- 



282 LIFE OF , HENRY WILSON. 

las to mean only that ' Britisli subjects on this continent 
were equal to British subjects born and residing in Great 
Britain.' 

" The Republican party believes with its chosen leader, 
Abraham Lincoln, that ' these expressions ' of apostate 
Democratic politicians, ' differing in form, are identical in 
object and effect, — the supplanting of the principles of free 
government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and 
legitimacy ; ' that ' they would delight a convocation of 
crowned heads plotting against the people ; ' that ' they 
are the vanguard, the sappers and miners, of returning 
despotism.' The Republican party believes too, with its 
noble candidate, that the ' abstract truth ' of the Declara- 
tion is ' applicable to all men and all times ; ' that ' to-day, 
and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stum- 
bling-block to the harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and 
oppression.' Accepting as its living faith the creed of the 
equality of mankind, the Republican party recognizes the 
poor, tiie humble, the sons of toil, whose hands are hard- 
ened by honest labor, whose limbs are chilled by the blasts 
of winter, whose cheeks are scorched by the suns of sum- 
mer, as the equals, before the law, of the most favored of 
the sons of men. 

" Believing with the republican fathers of the North 
and of the South, with Washington and Franklin, Adams 
and Jefferson, Henry and Jay, Morris and Mason, Madi- 
son and Hamilton, King and Munroe, Pinckney and Mar- 
tin, and their illustrious associates, that slavery is ' a sin of 
crimson dye,' ' an atrocious debasement of human nature,' 
' a dreadful calamity,' which ' lessens the sense of the equal 
rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and 
oppression ; ' believing with Henry Clay, that ' slavery is a 
wrong, a grievous wrong no contingency can make right,' 



HOW SHOULD WORKTNG-MEN VOTE? 283 

— the Republican party is opposed to slavery everywhere. 
Recoojnizing the rights of the States, it does not claim 
power to abohsh slavery in the States by Congressional 
legislation : but it claims the power to' exclude slavery 
from the Territories ; and, by the blessing of God, it will 
use every legal power and make every honorable effort 
to expel slavery from every rood of the territory of the 
republic. 

" Working-men of Massachusetts, you who eat your 
bread in the svveat of the face, would you make the self- 
evident truths of the charter of independence again the 
active faith of America ; would you weaken the influences 
of slavery and the power of the slave-masters over the 
National Government ; would you expel slavery and its 
degrading influences from the Territories ; would you bring 
Kansas as a free commonwealth into the Union ; would you 
suppress the reviving African slave-trade, now dishonoring 
the nation ; would you erase from tlie statutes of New Mex- 
ico the inhuman slave-code, and the more infamous code 
authorizing employers to degrade white laboring-men with 
blows, while it denies all means of protection by closing 
the courts against their appeals for redress ; would you set 
apart the public domain for homesteads for the landless ; 
would you construct a railroad across the central regions 
of the continent to the Pacific ; would you adjust the reve- 
nue-laws so as to incidentally favor American labor; would 
you win back our lost influence with the nations south of 
us on this continent, and thus increase and develop our 
manufacturing and commercial interests ; would you reform 
existing abuses, strengthen the ties of interest and aflPec- 
tion which bind these sister States together, and put the 
republic in the van of advancing nations, — then commit, 
fully and unreservedly commit, yourselves to the cause of 



284 LIFE OF HENTIY WILSON. 

repuhlicanism, to the support of the Republican party and 
its tried and trusted candidates. Born in the ranks of the 
toiling masses, reared in the bosom of the people, trained 
in the hard school of manual labor, Abraham Lincoln 
and Hannibal Hamlin are true to the rights, the inter- 
ests, and the dignity of the working-men of the republic ; 
worthy to lead their advancing hosts to victory tor the 
vindication of rights as old as creation, and as wide as 
humanity." 

Mr. Schuyler Colfax and many others wrote to the 
author, thanking him for this speech ; and the general 
tenor of the letters may be seen from this : — 

BiDDEFORD, Me., Nov. 19, 1860. 
Dear Sir, — You have made but very few political 
speeches during your life that I have not read. No one 
appreciates more than I do the herculean labors that you 
and your noble colleague and associates have made in 
eidightening the national mind and heart upon the aggres- 
sions of the slave-power. What a glorious triumph you 
have achieved ! What a revolution has been effected, and 
how peacefully ! I have many times expressed to my 
family and friends the thought so eloquently enforced by 
our mutual friend, Henry Ward Beecher, in his recent 
sermon on the times (which I think is the greatest speech 
he has ever made), — that hereafter the 6th of November, 
1860, will be ranked by the historian as an era of equal 
importance with the 22d of December, 1620, and the 4th 
of July, 1776. 

I subscribe myself, with high respect and regard, 
Your obedient servant, 

Charles Packard. 



HIS COURSE m THE EVENT OF DISUNION. 285 

On the trium])h of the Republicans in Mr. Lincoln's 
election in November, the South, led on by Messrs. 
Mason, Hammond, Davis, Floyd, and other kindred spirits, 
who foresaw tliat freedom, so persistently resisted, was 
• now comintr into the ascendant, inconsiderately passed, 
State after State, the ordinance of seccession, and gradually 
withdrew its representatives from Congress. 

Mr. Wilson clearly saw the magnitude of the proceed- 
ing and the tremendous stake at issue : he knew the 
strength of the North in numbers, wealth, and principle ; 
he knew the weakness of the South ; and hence he had no 
fear for the ultimate result : but from the unity of senti- 
ment, from the animus of the South, he ©penly avowed to 
his associates that the struggle would be desperate and 
terrible. 

With calm and manly earnestness he performed his 
senatorial duties, ever protesting that his party had no 
design to interfere at all with the domestic institutions of 
the States, and that, if they fell, it would be in conse- 
quence of their impetuous action, and upon their own 
responsibility. 

He had already feai'lessly expressed his mind in a speech 
in the Senate on the 25th of January preceding, in which 
he refisrs to the following remark of Mr. Chngman of 
North Carolina: "As from this Capitol so much has gone 
forth to inflame the public mind, if our countrymen are 
to be involved in a bloody struggle, I trust in God that 
the first-fruits of the collision may be reaped here," He 
said, — 

" This language, Mr. President, admits of but one in- 
terpretation. Gentlemen from the South who are in favor 
of a dissolution of the Union do not intend, in so doing, to 
secede from this Capitol, nor surrender it to those who 



286 LIFE OP HENRY WILSON. 

may remain within the Union. Having declared, that, if 
hves are to be sacrificed, it will be poetically just tliat they 
should be sacrificed here on this floor ; and that, as so 
much has gone forth from this Capitol to inflame the public 
mind, it is but proper that the first-fruits of the struggle 
should be reaped here, the senator gives us, therefore, 
distinctly to understand that there may be a physical 
collision, ' a bloody struggle ; ' that the scene of this con- 
flict is to be the legislative halls of this Capitol. To 
simply say, in reply to this threat, that Northern senators 
cannot thus be intimidated, is too tame and commonplace 
to meet the exigency. Therefore I take it upon myself 
to inform the senator from North Carolina that the people 
of the free States have sent their representatives here, not 
to fight, but ta legislate ; not to mingle in personal combats, 
but to deliberate for the good of the whole country ; not 
to shed the blood of their felloAv-members, but to maintain 
the supremacy of the Constitution, and ui)hold the Union : 
and this they will endeavor to. do here, in the legislative 
halls of the Capitol, at all events and at every hazard. In 
the performance of their duties they will not invade the 
rights of others, nor permit any infringement of their own. 
They will invite no collision ; they will commence no 
attack : but they will discharge all their obligations to their 
constituents, and maintain the government and institutions 
of their country in the face of all conceivable consequences. 
Whoever thinks otherwise has not studied either the 
histoiy of the people of the free States, or the character of 
the men dwelling in that section of the Union, or the phi- 
losophy of the exigency which the senator from North 
Carolina seems to invoke. The freemen of the North have 
not been accustomed to vaunt their courage in words : they 
have prefierred to illustrate it by deeds. They are not 



HIS COTTRSE m THE EVENT OP DISUNION. 287 

fighting-men by profession, nor accustomed to street broils, 
nor contests on the 'field of honor' falsely so called, nor 
are they habitual wearers of deadly weapons. Therefore 
it is, that when driven into bloody collisions, and especially 
on sudden emergencies, it is as true in fact as it is sound in 
philosophy, that they are more desperate and determined, 
and more reckless of consequences to themselves and to 
their antagonists, than are those who are more accustomed 
to contemplate such colhsions. The tightest band, when 
once broken, recoils with the wildest power. So much for 
the people of the free States. As to their representatives 
in this Capitol, I will say, that if, while in the discharge of 
their duties here, they are assaulted with deadly intent, I 
give the senator from North Carolina due notice here 
to-day, that those assaults will be repelled and retaliated 
by sons who will not dishonor fathers that fought at 
Bunker Hill and conquered at Saratoga, that trampled the 
soil of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane to a bloody mire, and 
vindicated sailors' rights and national honor on the high 
seas in the second war of independence. Reluctant to 
enter into such a contest, yet, once in, they will be quite as 
reluctant to leave it. Though they may not be the first to 
go into the struggle, they will be the last to abandon it in 
dishonor. Though they will not provoke nor commence 
the conflict, they will do their best to conquer when the 
strife begins. So much their constituents will demand of 
them when the ' bloody struggle ' the senator contemplates 
is forced upon them ; and they will not be disappointed 
when the exigency comes. I say no more : 1 wait the 
issue, and bide my time." 

Mr. Wilson for a long period had been serving on the 
Military Committee of the Senate, of which Mr. Jefferson 
Davis was chairman ; and had thus become familiar with 



288 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

his schemes for strengthening the mihtary condition of the 
South : he had not, however, anticipated that secession 
from the Unitm was so close at hand. Thouo;h opposed to 
each other in principle, the personal relations hetween him- 
self and Mr. Davis were at that time pleasant ; and once 
at least, when Mr. Wilson closed a strong speech in the 
Senate, the Mississippi senator came across the floor, 
and thanked him cordially for the manly expression of 
his views. It was while on the Military Committee that 
Mr. Wilson, in opposition to the chairman, carried the 
" Signal-service Bill " through Congress, and thus con- 
fierred a lasting benefit upon the country. It is not proba- 
ble that Mr. Davis himself, until the election in November, 
imagined the secession of the slave States very near. South 
Carolina had always led the van in opposition to the North ; 
and now, in the culmination of the long argument, it was 
for her to cast the fatal die. Mr. Wilson, with his North- 
ern friends, deplored her folly ; but he foresaw that her 
first shot would break the chain of the slave, and that, in 
spite of the tongues of soothsayers, the Union and the 
Constitution still would stand. 

He knew, perhaps as well as any man, the comparative 
strength of the contending parties. He saw in Mr. Lin- 
coln's overwhelming vote in the electoral college the senti- 
ment of the nation. He well understood that the struggle 
was, and had been, whether free, or servile, labor should rule 
the country ; and that his party, which had' arisen from a 
small band branded by the name of Abolitionists in 1840 
to place by such a vast majority a president in the chair 
in 1860, had grown too slowly, fought too steadily on 
the line of sacred principle, to be intimidated by an or- 
dinance, or even by the cannon of seceders from the 
Union. He j)ointed out the impending danger, yet hoped, 



]\rR. Crittenden's compromise. 289 

that, by tlie policy of tlie incoming president, some recon- 
ciliation might be made without recourse to arms. 

But the vantage-ground now reached must be main- 
tained. An indignant people had at the polls declared that 
slavery must not be extended. By that declaration he 
must stand. He would not interfere with the " peculiar 
institution " in the States ; he would exhibit courtesy, for- 
bearance, and fraternity to the South : but the vast Ter- 
ritories of the Union must not be surrendered to the 
domination of the slavehokling power. In this position, 
he, with his associates, stood intrenched : so that when 
Mr. Crittenden's compromise, which made concessions to 
the South, came up in the Senate, he opposed it in a 
manly speech delivered on the 21st of February, 1861. 
With the clearest apprehension of the situation, with the 
history of the whole struggle fresh in memory, with the 
ominous prospect of disunion rising up before him, and with 
a spirit fired by the love of human freedom, he meets the 
question in a strain of fervid eloquence, vindicates the 
friends of liberty, and unfolds the iniquity of the offered 
compromise. 

After an eloquent introduction, he thus describes the 
distracted state of the nation : — 

" One year ago these chambers rang with passionate and 
vehement menaces of disunion. Statesmen to whom were 
committed the destinies of United America, with the oath 
of fidelity to the Constitution fresh upon their lips, inso- 
lently, scornfully, defiantly threatened to shiver the no- 
blest edifice, the fairest fabric, of free government ever 
erected by the toil or blessed by the hopes and prayers 
of humanity, if the people, the people of the free North, 
dared through the ballot-box assume the control of the 
affairs of the republic. These disloyal avowals were 



290 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

flashed over the wires, scattered broadcast over the land. 
Timid conservatives slirank appalled before these angry 
mutterings of meditated treason, and, with ' bated breath 
and whispering humbleness,' counselled submission. But 
these treasonable menaces unnerved not the souls of the 
ever loyal freemen of the North : tliey fired the hearts 
and rekindled the patriotism of the unselfish masses, — of 
the farmers who till their own fee-simple acres, unpolluted 
by the foot of the bondman ; of the mechanics whose 
hands are skilled by art ; of the laborers who recognize 
no master but Almighty God. Impelled by the fervid and 
unextinguishable impulse of freedom, by the purest and 
most unselfish patriotism, the unseduced, unpurchased, 
unawed freemen of the North calmly thronged to the 
ballot-box, and struck from faithless, corrupt, and disloyal 
hands the reins of power. 

" The treasonable words of last year have now hardened 
into deeds. Madness and folly rule the hour. Treason 
holds it carnival here in the national Capitol. Men high 
in the naticmal councils plot conspiracies against the gov- 
ernment they are sworn to defend, and clasp the hands 
of the assassins of the Union. Men to whom have been 
intrusted official duties and responsibilities talk of tlie 
dismemberment of the republic, not in the sad accents 
of patriotism, but with the gleeful chuckle of an irrepressi- 
ble joy. States vauntingly proclaim their withdrawal from 
the Union made by the fathers, recall their representa- 
tives in these chambers, capture the fortresses of the 
nation, insult, dishonor, and fire upon the flag of the re- 
public, seize the public property, and even erase from their 
festive days the hallowed anniversary of national inde- 
pendence, with all its glorious associations and thrilling 
memories. Never, no, never, since the morn of ci'eation, 



MR. Crittenden's compromise. 291 

has the histoiic pen recorded a conspiracy against tlie 
rights of man and democratic institutions so utterly cause- 
less, so wicked in its purpose, so regardless of the judg- 
ment of the civilized world and the approval of Almighty 
God." 

He makes this reference to Mr. Benton's views : — 

" But, sir, this wicked plot for the dismemberment of 
the Confederacy, which has now assumed such fearful pro- 
portions, was known to some of our elder statesmen. 
Thomas H. Benton ever r^iised his warning voice against 
the conspirators. I can never forget the terrible energy 
of his denunciations of the policy and acts of the nullifiers 
and secessionists. During the great Lecompton struggle 
in the winter of 1858, his house was the place of resort 
of several members of Congress, who sought his counsels, 
and delighted to listen to his opinions. In the last conver- 
sation I had with hiin, but a few days before he was pros- 
trated by mortal disease, he declared that ' the disunionists 
had prostituted the Democratic party;' that ' they had com- 
plete control of the administration ; ' that ' these conspirators 
would have broken up the Union if Col. Frdmont had 
been elected ; ' that ' the reason he opposed Fremont's 
election was that he knew these men intended to destroy 
the government, and he did not wish it to go to pieces in 
the hands of a member of his family.' " 

Repelling the reiterated charge that " Massachusetts 
hates the South," he said, — 

" In the halls of Congress, in the public journals, before 
the people, everywhere, the Christian people of the North 
are accused of hatred towards their countrymen of the 
South ; and these oft-repeated accusations have penetrated 
the ears and fired the hearts of the men of the South to 
madness. The people of Massachusetts, of New England, 



292 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of the North, hate not their countrymen of the South. I 
know Massachusetts ; I know something of the sentiments 
and feelings of her people. During the past fifteen years 
I have traversed every portion of the State, from the sands 
of the capes to the hills of Berkshire ; spoken in nearly 
every town ; sat at the tables and slept beneath the roofs 
of her people. Around those tables and beneath those 
roofs I have heard prayers to Almighty God for blessings 
on slave and on master. From thousands of Christian 
homes in Massachusetts, New .England, the North, tens 
of thousands of men and women daily implore God's bless- 
ing upon the whole country, — upon the poor slave and 
his proud master. Around the firesides of the liberty- 
loving. God-fearing families of Massachusetts, I have often 
heard the men, stigmatized as ' malignant, unrelenting 
enemies of the people of the South,' on their bended knees, 
with open Bible, implore the protection and blessing of 
Almighty God upon both master and slave, upon the peo- 
ple of the whole country. Gentlemen of the South visit- 
ing Massachusetts on pleasure or business are ever treated 
by all her people with considerate kindness and fraternal 
regard. The public men of the South are ever welcomed 
to Massachusetts, treated with courtesy by all, and some- 
times with ' complimentary flunkey ism ' by the few. I 
assert positively, without hesitation or qualification, that 
the people of Massachusetts, ay, of New England, manifest 
more kindness and courtesy towards their fellow-country- 
men of the South sojourning among them than they do 
towards their fellow-countrymen of the central States and 
of the West. Yancey, Henry, Hilliard, and other distin- 
guished sons of the South, were, during the late canvass, 
listened to in New England with attention and the utmost 
courtesy ; and that, too, when quiet citizens of Massachu- 



MR. CRITTEl!a)EN'S COMPROMISE. 293 

setts were, in portions of the South, subjected to the great- 
est indignities. ... 

"Not one, no, not one, in a thousand of the men who 
voted for Abraham Lincohi, cherishes in his heart a feeling 
of hatred towards the South, or the wish to put the brand 
of inequahtv or degradation upon the brow of his country- 
men ot that section of the Union. They would as gener- 
ously contribute of their treasure, they would as freely 
pour out their blood, for the defence of the South, as they 
would for the protection of their own Northern homes. 
Believers in that Christianity which unites all men as 
brethren, whicii makes man unutterably dear to his fellow- 
man, which impels its disciples to raise the fallen, and to 
labor for tiie elevation of the poor and the lowly ol the 
children of men, oppose the wrong, yet hate not the wrong- 
doer." 

He thus defends his constituents from the nnputation 

of fanaticism : — 

" The distinguishing opinion of Massachusetts concern- 
ing slavery in America is often flippantly branded in these 
hatls as wild, passionate, unreasoning fanaticism. Sena- 
tors of the South, tell me, I pray you tell me, if it be 
fanaticism for Massachusetts to see in this age what your 
peerless Washington saw in his age, — 'the direful effects 
of slavery.' Is it fanaticism for Massachusetts to believe 
as your Henry believed, that 'slavery is as repugnant 
to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible and de- 
structive to'liberty ' ? Is it fanaticism for her to believe as 
your Madison believed, that ' slavery is a dreadful calam- 
ity ' ? Is it fanaticism for her to beheve with your Mon- 
roe, that ' slavery has preyed upon the vitals of the Union, 
and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has 
existed"? Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your 



294 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Martin, tliat 'slavery lessens the sense of tlie equal rights of 
mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression ' ? 
Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Pinckney, that 
'it will one day destroy the reverence for liberty which is 
the vital principle of a republic ' ? Is it fanaticism for 
her to believe with your Henry Clay, that ' slavery is a 
wrong, a grievous wrong ; no contingency can make it 
right ' ? Surely senators who are wont to accuse Mas- 
saclmsetts of being drunk with fanaticism should not for- 
get that the noblest men the South has given to the 
service of the republic in peace and in war were her 
teachers. 

" Massachusetts in her heart of hearts loves liberty, 
loathes slavery. I glory in her sentiments ; for the heart 
of our common humanity is throbbing in sympathy with 
her opinions. But she is not unmindful of her constitu- 
tional duties, to her obligations to the Union, and to her 
sister States. Up to the verge of constitutional power she 
will go in maintenance of her cherished convictions ; but 
she has not shrunk, and she does not mean to shrink, from 
the performance of her obligations as a member of this 
confederation of constellated States. She has never sought, 
she does not seek, to encroach by her own acts, or by the 
action of the Federal Government, upon the constitutional 
rights of her sister States. Jealous of her own rights, she 
will respect the rights of others. Claiming the power to 
control her own domestic policy, she freely accords that 
power to her sister States. Conceding the rights of others, 
she demands her own. Loyal to the Union, she demands 
loyalty in others. Here and now, I demand of her ac- 
cusers that they file their bill of specifications, and pro- 
duce the proofs of their allegations, or forever hold their 
peace." 



MR. CEITTENDEN'S COilPEOHnSE. 295 

Thus gi-andl}' he speaks of the spirit of the State he 
represents : — 

" In otlier clays, when Adams, Webster, Davis, Everett, 
Cushiiifj, Choate, Winthrop, Mann, Rantoul, and their 
associates, graced these chambers, Massachusetts was then, 
as she is now, the object of animadversion and assault. I 
have sometimes thought, Mr. President, that these con- 
tinual assaults upon the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
were prompted, not by her faultsi, but by her virtues rather; 
not by the sense of justice, but by the spirit of envy and 
jealousy and uncharitableness. Unawed, however, by 
censure or menace, she continues to move right on, up- 
ward and onward, to the accomplishment of her high 
destinies. She is but a speck, a mere patch, on the surface 
of America, hardly more than one four-hundredth part of 
the territory of the republic, with a rugged soil, and still 
more rugged clime. But on that little spot of the globe 
is a Commonwealth where common consent is recognized 
as the only just basis of fundamental law, and personal 
freedom is secured in its completest individuality. In 
that Commonwealth are a million and a quarter of_ free- 
men, with skilled hand and cultivated brain ; with nine 
hundred millions of taxable wealth, and an annual pro- 
ductive industry of three hundred and fifty millions ; with 
mechanic arts and manufactures on every streamlet, and 
commerce on the waves of all the seas ; with institutions 
of moral and mental culture open to all, and art, science, 
and literature illustrated by glorious names ; with benevo- 
lent institutions for the sons and daughters of misfortune 
and poverty, and charities for humanity the wide world 
over. The heart, the soul, the reason of Massachusetts 
send up perpetual aspirations for the unity, indivisibility, 
and eternity of the North-American republic : but if 



296 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

it shall be rent, torn, dissevered, she will not lose her 
faith in God and humanity ; she will not go down with 
the falling fortunes of her country without making a 
struggle to preserve and perpetuate free institutions. So 
long as the ocean shall roll at her feet, so long as God shall 
send her health-giving breezes and sunshine and rain, she 
will endeavor to illustrate, in the future as in the past, 
the daily beauty of freedom secured and protected by 
law." 

On the money question he truly says, — 

" But the senator from Texas tells us that money is the 
sinew of war ; that we of the North have no money ; that 
they gather gold in hundreds of millions from the stalk of 
the cotton-plant. They send the negro, he says, to the 
field : he gathers cotton from the stalk, brings it to the gin- 
house, puts it through the necessary process, and rolls out 
a bale of five ten-dollar gold-pieces. But the senator did 
not tell us that it might have cost six ten-dollar gold-pieces 
to get this bale of five ten-dollar gold-pieces. The senator 
seems to belong to that class of political economists that 
never count the cost of maintaining ' King Cotton.' I 
would remind the senator that we of the North take this 
bale of cotton the negro picks, pay the five ten-dollar gold- 
pieces, stamp upon it our skill, art, civilization, send it 
back, and they of the South promise to give five bales of 
the next crop for it ; but I regret to say, sir, we are often 
forced to take fewer than are promised. I would remind 
the boastful senator that the people of the cotton con- 
federacy are in debt to the amount of millions ; that they 
are not paying fifty cents on the dollar of their indebted- 
ness ; that the proceeds of the last cotton-crop will not 
extinguish that indebtedness. I would remind the senator, 
who tells us we of the North have no money, that they pick 



MR. Crittenden's coMPRO]\nsE. 297 

it by millions from the stalk of the cotton-plant, that the 
woikinrr-men of Massachusetts, whom gentlemen of the 
South predicted would be in a state of starvation and insur- 
rection ere this, have on deposit, in the savings-banks alone, 
forty-five millions of dollars, — millions more than are de- 
posited in all the banks of the seven seceding States by mer- 
chants, bankers, planters, and all classes of their people." 

Of the compromise he remarks, — 

" The senator proposes to amend the Constitution so as 
to provide that ' in all the territory now held or here- 
after acquired, situate north of latitude thirty-six degrees 
and thirty minutes, slavery or involuntary servitude is 
prohibited ; and, in all territory now held or hereafter 
acquired south of that line of latitude, slavery shall be 
recognized as existing, and shall be protected by the terri- 
torial legislature during its territorial existence.' This, 
sir, is called a compromise of the slavery question in the 
Territories of the United States. A compromise ! — a 
compromise of the slavery question in the Territories ! It 
is, sir, a cheat, a delusion, a snare. It is an unqualified 
concession, a complete surrender of all practical issues con- 
cerning slavery in the Territories, to the demands of slave 
propagandism." 

He closes this masterly effort in these comprehensive 
words : — 

" But the senator from Kentucky asks us of the North, 
by irrepealable constitutional amendments, to recognize 
and protect slavery in the Territories now existing or here- 
after acquired south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes ; to 
deny power to the Federal Government to abolish slavery 
in the District of Columbia, in the forts, arsenals, navy- 
yards, and places under the exclusive jurisdiction of Con- 
gress ; to deny to the National Government all power to 



298 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

hinder tlie transit of slaves tlirough one State to another ; 
to take from persons of the African race the elective fran- 
chise ; and to purchase territory in South America or Africa, 
and to send them, at the expense of the treasury of the 
United States, such free negroes as the States may desire 
removed from their limits. And what does the senator pro- 
pose to concede to us of the North ? The prohibition of sla- 
very in Territories north of thirty-six degrees thirty min- 
utes, where no one asks for its inhibition ; where it has been 
made impossible by the victory of freedom in Kansas and 
the equalization of the fees of the slave commissioners. 
And this — this plan of concession — is called a com- 
promise, — the Crittenden Compromise, — to be supported 
by the representatives of millions of Northern freemen, 
on pain of having their fidelity to the Union questioned by 
the senator from Illinois, and his confederates in and out 
of this chamber. 

" Such, Mr. President, are the propositions of the senator 
from Kentucky, which we of the North are asked to put 
into the Constitution of the United States beyond the 
power of the American people ever to change or repeal. 
The unclouded reason, the enlightened conscience, the 
love of country and of our race, — all, all, forbid that 
Northern freemen should commit these crimes against 
mankind, our country, and the cause of popular freedom 
and republican institutions. We can not, no, sir, we dare 
not, do so. We fear — should we consummate these 
Avrongs to our country, to our race — the perpetual re- 
proaches of insulted reason and violated conscience, the ir- 
reversible judgment of earth and of heaven. We fear 
that our names will be enrolled, not with the benefactors 
of mankind, but with those who have betrayed the cause 
of the people. We fear — should we assent to this eter- 



LETTEES. 299 

nization of slavery in the Constitution our fathers framed 
to secure tlie blessings of liberty — that we shall sink, ' after 
life's fitful fever,' into dishonored graves, amid the curses 
of a betrayed people ; and that our names will be consigned 
to what Grattan, the great Irish orator, called ' oppression's 
natural scourge, — the moral indignation of history.'" 

This speech drew forth expressions of admiration from 
all sections of the country, which appeared in the public 
journals, or in resolutions, or in private letters. Mr. Whit- 
tier the poet wrote as follows : — 

Amesbury, 23d 2cl mo., 1861. • 
My dear Wilson, — I have this moment finished 
reading thy admirable and timely speech. It is as I wished 
it, — manly, frank, and dignified. Especially I was gratified 
by the portion of it directed to Crittenden's plan. The 
tribute to the colored citizens is a very noble and eloquent 
one, and ought to shame every Massachusetts man whose 
name is on the Crittenden petitions.' 

Very truly thy friend, 

John G. Whittier. 

The gifted Mrs. L. M. Child wrote thus: — 

Medford, March 10, 1861. 

Dear and Honored Representative of the Free 
Old Commonwealth, — I have just finished reading 
aloud to my husband your speech on Mr. Crittenden's 
proposed amendment to the Constitution ; and I cannot 
refrain from writing to thank you for it with my whole 
heart. Eloquent, able, true, brave words, such as the 
times need. 1 had seen extracts from your speech which 
raaile my heart throb with a generous jo}''. I was almost 
afraid to read the entire speech, lest some word, meant for 



300 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

conciliation, but which would be compromise, should abate 
somewhat my exultation in the honest and true expression 
of Massachusetts feeling ; but, as I proceeded, the reading 
was only interrupted by exclamations of " Well done, Wil- 
son ! " " That is manly ! " " Thafs a good hit ! " &c. You 
have made many able speeches ; and I have often felt 
grateful to you for true, manly utterance. In your speech, 
"Are working-men slaves?" I greatly admired the digni- 
fied frankness with which you announced youmlf a work- 
ing-man ; for no fieeling in my soul is stronger tlian respect 
for labor. The physical courage and moral bravery you 
manifested on the subject of duelling commanded my un- 
qualified respect. You stood firmly in your position, took 
back no word you had uttered, but simply said, '• Duelling is 
a barbarism ; my conscience and reason are opposed to it ; 
the conscience and reason of my constituents are opposed 
to it ; and no force of example shall degrade me to its level." 
That is wiiat I have always wanted Northerners to say. 
If all Northern men would manifest the same moral cour- 
age, slaveholders would be compelled to respect fi'eedom 
of speecii, or I'esort to assassination. They could no 
longer murder their opponents, or threaten it, under the 
painted mask of " laws of honor." 

But, much as I have admired several of your former 
speeches, you have never so completely gained my heart 
as in this last one. I have so often closed the reading of 
Republican speeches with the remark, " Ah ! they think 
only of the interests of white men : they ignore the mon- 
strous and perpetual wrongs tiiat we are helping the South 
to inflict upon the colored race." 

Yours with great respect and gratitude, 

L. Maria Child. 

Hon. II. Wilson, U. S. Senator. 



Lettehs. 301 

From Gerrit Smith the following letter was received : — 

Hon. Henry Wilson. Princeton, Feb. 26, 1861. 

My dear Sir, — I have just finished reading your man- 
ly, bold, strong, and eloquent speech of the 21st instant. 
Heaven bless you for it ! Let there be no compromise with 
men whilst they are in the attitude of rebels. When they 
shall have returned to their allegiance, then deal with them 
not only justly, but generously. If the people of the slave 
States — not merely the politicians — shall tell us that 
they wish to leave us, then let them go, if they will go 
peaceably and decently. But we can never consent to 
their going in a way that will disgrace us, demoralize and 
destroy our government. Nor can we consent to a small 
secession on any terms. We cannot let the Gulf States 
go unless most of the other slave States go with them. 
We cannot consent, for the gratification of a few States, to 
lose the mouth of the Mississip|)i, and to leave ourselves 
comparatively defenceless on the south. 

Give my love to dear Sumner, and tell him that I hope 
to read a grand speech from him before the session closes. 
With great regard, your friend, 

Gerrit Smith. 

Mr. Amasa Walker wrote as follows : — 

North Bkookfield, March 11, 1861. 

Dear Sir, — I have received your speech on the Crit- 
tenden Compromise, and read it with great satisfaction. 

You have met the true issue fully and ably, and will 
receive the approbation of all your constituents, and, I 
doubt not, of the Republican party generally. 
Your friend and servant, 

Amasa. Walker. 
Hon. Henry Wilson, U. S. Senator, Washington, D.C. 



302 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

But perhaps, of all the testimonials of gratitude which 
the senator received for his great speech, none was more 
acceptable than the following from an association of that 
race whose wrongs he had been so long struggling to 
remove : — 



At a regular meeting of the Union Progressive Asso- 
ciation, — a literary society composed of young colored 
men, — held at their rooms Feb. 27, the following vote of 
thanks was unanimously adopted : — 

Wliereas, The adoption by Congress of that monstrous 
proposition known as the Crittenden Compromise would 
extend, perpetuate, and give the sanction of law to that 
infernal system which keeps four millions of our brethren 
in bondage, and would deprive us young colored men of 
Massachusetts of prospective rights, the enjoyment of 
which we have looked forward to with the most ardent 
anticipations ; and 

Whereas^ In this hour of our peril, when there are so 
few men occupying places of trust who have the moral 
courage to plead our cause and defend our rights when 
they are assailed, we should be recreants to our race and 
to ourselves did we not recognizethe value and importance 
of words spoken in our behalf by our friends at this time : 
therefore 

Resolved, That the grateful thanks of this association 
are tendered to the honorable senator from Massachu- 
setts, Henry Wilson, for his able analysis and lucid expo- 
sition of the enormities of the " Crittenden Surrender," 
and also for his manly recognition and eloquent enumera- 
tion of the services of our patriot fathers in the war for 
American independence. We shall ever hold his name in 



VOTE OF THANKS. 303 

grateful remembrance for the noble and generous words 

uttered on that occasion, worthy as they are of a son of old 

Massachusetts. ry -j . 

William C. Nell, President. 

R. Z. Greener, Secretary. 

To tlie Honorable Senator from Massachusetts, Henry Wilson. 

Boston, Feb. 27, 1861. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE OPENING OF THE WAR. MR. WILSON S ENERGETIC 

ACTION. HIS MEASURES IN CONGRESS. GEN. SCOTT's 

OPINION OF HIS SERVICES. THE MASSACHU- 
SETTS TWENTY-SECOND REGIMENT. HIS 

UNSELFISH PATRIOTISM. HIS LA- 
BORS IN THE SENATE. 



The Beginning of Hostilities. — His Advice to the President. — Activity. — 
Labors as Chairman of Military Committee. — Bills introduced by him. — 
Letter from Gen. Scott. — The Soldiers' Friend. — Battle of Bull Run, 
July 21. — He raises nearly Twenty-three Hundred Men. — Made Colonel of 
the Twenty-second Regiment. — Goes with it to Washington. — Character 
of this Regiment. — Aide-de-camp to Gen. McClellan. — Letter of Gen. 
Williams. — Receives no Compensation for Sen-ice. — Unfounded Charge 
of Mr. Russell. — Mr. Wilson's Letter. — His Record. — Rebellion strength- 
ens. — Character of the Republican Leaders. — Measures introduced and 
carried through Congress by Mr. Wilson. — Letter of Mr. Cameron. — 
Emancipation in the District of Columbia. — An Early Aspiration realized. 
— Letters from Lewis Tappan and John Jay. 



THE inaugui-al of Mr. Lincoln was conciliatory, but 
decided. It echoed the sentiment of the Republican 
party, declaring that the Constitution should be faithfully 
regarded, and the rights of Southern men respected. It 
served, however, but to inflame the animosity of the seces- 
sionists ; and, on the afternoon of April 12, the fearful 
drama opened by the cannonade upon Fort Sumter. 
" Those guns proclaim the doom of slavery," said Mr. 

304 



ENERGETIC ACTION. 305 

Wilson ; " but a tremendous conflict is before us." He 
and Mr. Walbridge of New York advised the president 
(May 1) to call for three hundred tliousand instead of 
seventy-five thousand men ; and, persuading the secretary 
of war to double the number of men apportioned to the 
State he represented, he telegraphed immediately to Gov. 
Andrew, requesting that one brigade be sent at once to 
Washington. Returning home, he received intelligence 
that the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, under Col. Edward 
F. Jones, had been fired upon while passing through the 
streets of Baltimore. Spending a sleepless night, he 
started on the following day for Washington. Learning 
that communication with that city had been closed, he left 
New York on April 21, and went by water with the troops 
to Annapolis. On finding Gen. Butler here in want of 
cannon to defend the place, he returned immediately to New 
York, obtained some heavy pieces of artillery, and then, 
as soon as possible, went to Washington, where he continued 
laboring day and night in making preparations for the 
coming conflict. In the hospital, the camp, the cabinet, 
his cheerful voice was heard encouraging and counselling ; 
and, by his earnest exhortations, many persons in those 
dark days of doubt and indecision were induced to ignore 
minor differences, and to stand fast by the Union. As the 
rebellion strengthened, Mr. Lincoln saw that more efficient 
measures must be taken to subdue it ; and he therefore 
called an extra session of Congress, which assembled on the 
fourth day of July, and at once proceeded to important 
business. 

As chairman of the Military Committee of the Senate, 
Mr. Wilson entered on a course of ceaseless toil and vigi- 
lance. It was a post of vast responsibility, demanding 
clear conception, solid judgment, great executive ability, 



306 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

and a practical knowledge of military affairs. An army- 
was to be raised, equipped, and officered ; supplies and hos- 
pitals were to be provided, and funds for carrying on the 
war obtained. It was fortunate that the government found 
in Mr. Wilson one who, by long experience in legislative 
and military life, by comprehensive views, by good sound 
common sense, and by celerity of execution, was qualitied 
to meet the occasion. 

With an energy unparalleled in the annals of legisla- 
tion, he engaged in making preparations for the coming 
conflict. 

On the 6tli of July he introduced into the Senate the 
important bill authorizing the president to call for five hun- 
dred thousand volunteers, which on the 21st of that month 
became a law ; also the bill to " increase the military estab- 
hshment of the United States," which was approved by the 
president on the 29th of July ; and the bill providing for 
the " better organization of the military establishment." 
It contained twenty-five sections, and I'eceived the signa- 
ture of the president on the third day of August. 

Of the last bill Mr. Wilson said, " I have labored nisht 
and day for many days and nights to fit and prepare this 
bill to meet the actual wants of the country ; and, in doing 
so, I confess that in every step of it I have had to meet 
the interests, the jealousies, or the prejudices of men con- 
nected with the army of the United States : but, in framing 
it, I have endeavored to be governed wholly by the public 
interest." 

On the 22d of July he introduced the bill authorizing 
the president " to accept of the services of volunteers, either 
as cavalry, infantry, or artillery, in such numbers as the 
exigencies of the public service might in his opinion 
demand." This bill became a law on the 26th of the 



ENERGETIC ACTION. 307 

same month. On the 29th be brought forward a bill to 
provide for the purchase of arms, ordnance, and ordnance- 
stores, which was approved by the president on the third 
day of August ; and on the last day of July he presented 
the bill for the appointment of additional aides-de-camp, 
which was enacted on the 5th of August. By a provision 
of this act, the barbarous custom of flogging was abolished 
in the army. On the first day of August he introduced 
the bill for making an appropriation of a hundred thou- 
sand dollars tor contingencies for fortifications, and on the 
next day the " bill to authorize an increase in the corps of 
engineers and topographical engineers." 

On the 6th of the same month he introduced an im- 
portant bill to increase the pay of privates in the army 
from eleven to tliii teen dollars jier month ; also to extend 
the provisions of the act " for the relief of the Ohio volun- 
teers and other volunteers " to all volunteers, no matter 
for what term of service they might have been accepted. He 
also added an amendment to the bill, that all the acts, proc- 
lamations, and orders of the president after the 4th of 
March, 1861, respecting the army and navy, be legalized 
and made valid. This received the approval of Mr. Lincoln 
on the 6th of August. 

To frame, explain, and defend these vai'Ious bills, which 
called into being, organized, and provisioned a vast army, 
demanded an extent of information, a constructive ability, 
and a rapidity of execution, such as but few law-makers 
possess. In view of these herculean labors. Gen. Scott 
remarked that "Senator Wilson had done more work 
in that short session than all the chairmen of the military 
committees had done for the last twenty years." He 
afterwards addressed to him the following note of 
thanks : — 



308 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Washington, Aug. 10, 18G1. 
Dear Sir, — In takinrr leave of you some days ago, I 
fear that I did not so emphatically express my thanks to 
you, as our late chairman of the Senate Committee, as my 
feelings and those of my brother-officers of the army (with 
whom I have conversed) warranted, for your able and 
zealous efforts to give to the service the fullest war devel- 
opment and efficiency. It is pleasing to remember the 
pains you took to obtain accurate information, wherever it 
could be found, as a basis for wise legislation ; and we hope 
it may be long before the army loses your valuable services 
in the same capacity. 

With great esteem. 

Yours very truly, 

WiNFiELD Scott. 

Hon. H. "Wilson, Chairman Senate Military Committee. 

Such strenuous action for the soldier in the Senate-cham- 
bei*, camp, and hospital, such cordial sympathy with hira 
in his toils and sufferings, gained for Mr. Wilson the envi- 
able name of "The Soldier's Friend." 

Mr. Wilson was personally present at the disastrous bat- 
tle of Bull Run, July 21, aiding and encouraging officers 
and ])rivates as he had opportunity. Attempts were made 
by the confederates to secure his person ; but he returned 
to Washington in safety. Undismayed by the repulse, he 
said to one of his friends on Monday following, " This is 
our chastisement for fighting on the sabbath. But we are 
right in principle : God is on the side of right ; and we shall 
win if we obey hira. We want more men ; we must go 
to work for them ; and, just as soon as possible, I intend to 
raise a remment in Massachusetts." 



THE TWENTY-SECOND REGBIENT. 309 

On the adjournment of Congress, the pi-esident was 
desirous that Mr. Wilson should be appointed brigadier- 
general of volunteers ; but, as this would compel the 
resignation of his seat as senator, he preferred to carry out 
liis original design of raising a regiment of men at home. 
Obtaining authority for this, he returned to Massachusetts, 
issued an address, held an enthusiastic meeting in Faneuil 
Hall, and commenced recruiting. Such was his popularity, 
that, in the space of forty days, he raised nearly two 
thousand three hundred men. They were strong, in- 
telligent farmers, mechanics, and tradesmen, from the 
good families of the Commonwealth. Out of them were 
formed the Twenty-second Regiment, a part of the Twenty- 
third Regiment, one company of sharpshooters, and two 
batteries of artillery. The first company went into camp 
at Lynnfield on the second day of September ; and on that 
day Mr. Wilson received his commission from the governor 
as colonel, with the distinct understanding, however, that 
his senatorial duties would permit him to remain with the 
regiment only for a brief period ; and that he would, on 
leaving it, endeavor to find some able commander to 
assume his place. On the eighth day of October, the 
regiment, with full ranks, and armed with Enfield rifles, 
together with the company of sharpshooters and the third 
battery of light artillery, left for Washington. Previous 
to his departure, Mr. Wilson received as a present from 
some friends a fine Morgan horse, with saddle and hous- 
ings, as a testimonial of their confidence and regard ; and 
a splendid flag was presented by Robert C. Winthrop to 
the regiment on Boston Common. On their way to Wash- 
ington, these troops Avere most enthusiastically greeted 
by the people. In New York a banquet was prepared for 



310 LIFE OF HENRY WrLSON. 

them, attended by eminent men of every party. A beau- 
tiful flag was presented to the regiment by the late dis- 
tinguished lawyer, James T. Brady. They arrived at 
Washington on the eleventh day of October ; and two days 
later, crossing the Potomac, went into camp with Gen. 
Martindale's brigade in Fitz-John Porter's division at 
Hall's Hill in Virginia. His duties in connection with the 
Senate rendered it necessary for Mr. Wilson to leave his 
fine regiment : and he therefore gave up his commission on 
the 28tli of October ; and the accomplished Jesse D. Gove 
(killed June 27, 1862, at Gaines's Mills, Va.) was ap- 
pointed to fill the vacancy. 

When the regiment, after the unfortunate battle of 
Ball's Bluff, Oct. 29, was expected to advance to an en- 
gagement with the enemy, Mr. Wilson offered to share 
the danger ; but, as circumstances changed, his personal 
presence was not demanded. 

This regiment, and especially the third battery under 
the command of the able and heroic Augustus P. Martin, 
performed effective service in many warm engagements 
during the Rebellion. " The valuable and eflficient service 
you have rendered your country," said Gen. Charles 
Griffin in a letter to the commander of the regiment at the 
expiration of its term of service in October, 1864, " during 
the past three years of its eventful history, is deserving of 
its gratitude and praise." 

Mr. Wilson always took the liveliest interest in this 
regiment, and provided for the intellectual and moral ad- 
vancement, as well as for the personal comforts, of the 
men ; for he believed that " bayonets which think fight 
best." The manner in which its officers and men regarded 
him may be seen from the following letter, dated — 



THE TWENTY-SECOND EEGEVIENT. 311 

Hall'3 Hill, Va., Oct. 21, 1861. 

My dear Sir, — I know not what I am going to 
write : but I know what is in my heart ; and that is, a 
deep respect and affection for yourself. 

My father died more than four years since ; and I have 
not met, until I knew you, one whom I could look up to 
with that mingled respect and affection which is due to a 
father. You have chidden only when it was for our good, 
and have exhibited a kindness and benevolence of heart 
which no man shall ever dare to deny to you before me. 

Be assured, sir, that I fully appreciate your acts of kind- 
ness to me ; and they have been many, — so many, indeed, 
that I have come slowly to the conclusion that a man 
may, even in these days, occupy a high position without 
abandoning his good qualities. May God prosper you in 
your labors for our beloved country ! I tremble when I 
think what power is in your hands to do our country good 
or evil, and only pray that you may never be swerved 
from that bright pathway along which you are now 
journeying. Wm. S. Tilton. 

On resigning his position as colonel of the Twenty- 
second Regiment, Mr. Wilson, by the pressing invitation 
of the secretary of war, took position for a brief period 
. as an aide-de-camp on Gen. McClellan's staff, in order that 
he might, by practical observation of the condition of the 
army, increase its power and efficiency by his labors in the 
legislative hall. The organization of fresh forces on so 
vast a scale demanded practical knowledge of the art of 
war ; and the best place to obtain it was at head-quarters 
on the field. But senatorial duties soon compelled him to 
return to Washington ; and, in the letter accepting his 
resignation as an aide-de-camp, Gen. Williams said, " The 



312 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

reasons assigned in your letter (Jan. 9) are such, that 
the general is not permitted any other course than that of 
directing the acceptance of your resignation. He wishes 
me to add that it is with regret that he sees the termina- 
tion of the pleasant official relations which have existed 
between you and himself, and that he yields with reluc- 
tance to the necessity created by the pressure upon you of 
other and more important public duties." 

He cheerfully bore his own expenses while raising his 
regiment, and received no pay whatever for his services as 
colonel or as Gen. McClellan's aide-de-camp. 

To the infamous charge of W. H. Russell of " The Lon- 
don Times," that Senator Wilson was interested in large 
shoe contracts, and had taken better care of himself and 
his fortunes than of a suffering nation, he made the follow- 
ing distinct and unequivocal reply : — 

"Natick, Nov. 9, 1861. 
" To the Editor of ' The Boston Journal : ' — 

" I ask you, and other conductors of public journals in 
Massachusetts willing to do me a personal favor, to pub- 
lish this explicit denial of the truthfulness of the story 
some person or persons have invented and put in cii'cula- 
tion, that I have a government contract for a million 
pairs of shoes, by which I am to realize the sum of a 
quarter of a million of dollars. This story, in all its parts 
and in every form, is utterly false ; and the person or 
persons originating it knew it to be a false and wicked 
slander. I have no contract, I have had no contract, with 
the government, either directly or indirectly, for shoes, or 
for any thing else ; nor have I now, nor have I had, any 
interest in any contract of any person whatever with the 
government. I not only have no contract with the 



HIS PATRIOTISM. 313 

government, noi* interest in the contracts of others, but 
no man now has, nor has had, any contract with tlie gov- 
ernment through any agency or influence of mine. The 
government, since the 4th of March, has made no contract 
with any man, for any purpose whatever, through any 
agency or influence of mine ; and it never will make con- 
tracts through any agency or influence of mine. As a 
senator of Massachusetts, mindful of her interests, I have 
sometimes reminded the department of the manufacturing 
and mechanic'kl skill of her people ; of their losses by this 
wicked Rebellion ; of their readiness to furnish men and 
monev to sustain the national cause ; of their capacity to 
furnisii the army, at the lowest rates, needed articles : and 
I have ex[)ressed the hope that the agents of the govern- 
ment, in their purchases, would not forget the people of 
my State. This much I have said ; this much I felt I had 
a right to say ; and this much I felt it my duty to say. 
But to all men, who have asked me by word or letter to 
aid them in obtaining contracts of the government, I have 
said that my sense of propriety would not permit me to 
have any thing to do with contracts ; that I could not, in 
any way, aid in procuring contracts ; that no man ever 
had, or ever would have, contracts through my agency or 
influence. This has been, now is, and will ever be, my 
position." 

While many men in power most shamefully enriched 
themselves and families by " the spoils of war," the record 
of Henry Wilson is absolutely clean and clear. " I am 
not worth ent)ugh," said he in one of his addresses, " to 
buy a pine coffin for my burial." Immaculate as an old 
Roman patriot, he stands unscathed by any charge of 
bribery, venality, or corruption. 
27 



314 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

Eleven States were now in open rebellion against the 
government. A Southern confederacy had been formed, 
with Jefferson Davis at the head ; many forts and arsenals 
had been seized, and a vast confederate army was in the 
field. Old landmarks had been broken down, and a new 
order of things had begun. Four million slaves were 
panting to be free. The capital of the nation had become 
a camping-ground, and open war was the order of the day. 

It was forced upon the government : the South must 
take the consequences. The president had, on the six- 
teenth day of August, declared a state of insurrection ; 
and the leading questions were, " How shall the Union be 
preserved ? " " How increase and officer, and impart 
efficiency to, the army ? " " What shall be done with 
slaves and rebel property?" "How, at the least ex- 
pense of blood, crush the Rebellion ? " 

Rapid, efficient, and decisive legislation was demanded 
for the exigency ; and it was fortunate for the country that 
strong men were in the halls of Congress. For the most 
part they were true reformers, educated in the school of 
freedom, and prepared for the tremendous issue. Among 
them Henry Wilson stood prominent. He had studied 
America, her spirit and her institutions ; he saw distinctly 
where the merit of the question lay ; and, though he 
shuddered at the sacrifice, he felt certain of the ultimate 
result. 

Entering with indomitable industry upon business at 
the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, he 
introduced, and carried to enactment, many bills and 
resolutions which had an immediate bearing on the effi- 
ciency of the army and the government. Among the 
more important measures was a bill providing for the ap- 
pointment of persons to procure from volunteers their 



HIS MEASURES IN CONGEESS. 315 

respective allotments of pay for their families, which was 
enacted Dec. 24, 1861 ; a bill regulating courts-martial in 
the army ; " a bill to provide for the better organization 
of the signal department of the army," approved on the 
twenty - second day of February, 1862 ; a bill for the 
" appointment of sutlers in the volunteer service ; " a bill 
" to increase the efficiency of the medical department of 
the army ; " a bill to facilitate the discharge of enlisted 
men for physical disability ; a joint resolution providing for 
" the presentation of medals of honor to .the enlisted men 
of the army and volunteer forces who miay distinguish 
themselves in battle ; " a bill, introduced on the eighth 
day of July, " to amend the act calling forth the militia to 
execute the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel inva- 
sions," which became a law on the 17th of July, 1862. 

By this important act the president is authorized to 
receive persons of African descent for any military service 
for which they are competent ; and all Africans rendering 
such service shall be free. This act authorized, for the 
first time, the drafting of negroes, and their regular intro- 
duction as soldiers into the service of the United States. 

Mr. Wilson also, on the 23d of December, introduced 
the bill into the Senate, dismissing from the service offi- 
cers guilty of surrendering fugitive slaves to their masters. 
After much discussion, it became a law March 13, 1862. 

It was framed to protect those slaves, who, as our armies 
advanced into the rebel States, fled to them for refuge, 
and who offered, in the words of Mr. Wilson, " to work 
and fight for the flag whose stars for the first time gleamed 
upon their vision with the radiance of liberty." 

On resigning his office as secretary of war during this 
session, Mr. Cameron addressed to him the following 
letter : — 



316 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Washington, Jan. 27, 18G2. 

My dear Sir, — No man, in my opinion, in the whole 
country, has done more to aid the war department is 
preparing the mighty army now under arms than your- 
self; antl, before leaving this city, I think it my duty to 
offer to you my sincere thanks as its late head. 

As chairman of the Mihtary Committee of the Senate, 
your services were invaluable. At the first call for troops, 
you came here ; and up to the meeting of Congress, a 
period of more than six months, your labors were inces- 
sant. Sometimes in encouraging the administration by 
assurances of support from Congress, by encouraging 
volunteering in your own State, by raising a regiment 
yourself when other men began to fear that compulsory 
drafts might be necessary, and in the Senate by preparing 
the bills, and assisting to get the necessary appropria- 
tions, for organizing, clothing, arming, and supplying the 
army, you have been constantly and profitably employed 
in the great cause of putting down the unnatural Re- 
bellion. 

For the many personal favors you have done me since 
the beginning of this struggle I shall ever be grateful. 
Your friend truly, 

Simon Cameron. 
Hon. Henry Wilson. 

On the 16th of December, 1861, he introduced a bill 
" for the release of certain persons held to service or labor 
[that is, for the abolition of slavery] in the District of 
Columbia." " If it shall become a law of the land," said 
Mr. Wilson, " it will blot out slavery forever from the 
national capital, transform three thousand personal chattels 
into freemen, obliterate oppressive, odious, and hateful laws 



LETTER FROM MR. TAPPAN. 317 

and ordinances which press with merciless force upon per- 
sons, bond or free, of African descent, and relieve the na- 
tion from the responsibilities now pressing upon it. An 
act of beneficence like this will be hailed and applauded 
by the nations, sanctified by justice, humanity, and religion, 
by the approving voice of conscience, and by the blessing 
of Him who bids us " break every yoke, undo the heavy 
burden, and let the oppressed go free." 

This bill met with bitter opposition from the secession 
element in Congress, but was finally passed ; and the 
president gave it his approval on the sixteenth day of April, 
1862. The freedmen then assembled in their churches, and 
offered thanks to God for their deliverance. 

In the enactment of this law Mr. Wilson saw the 
realization of those hopes which he had expressed in his 
first public speech, made a full quarter of a century before, 
in Stratford (N. H.) Academy. He surely had been 
led in a way he knew not to the accomplishment of a 
part in rending the chain of the bondman, for which his 
name will ever be held by the friends of freedom in grate- 
ful remembrance. 

The following letters from tw^o eminent philanthropists 
express the general sentiment of the North in respect to 
Mr. Wilson's course : — 

New York, April 28, 1862. 
Hon. Henry Wilsox, Senator in Congress from Massachusetts. 

My dear Sir, — I have to day read your speech of March 
27, " On the Bill to abolish Slavery in the District of 
Columbia," for the second time, and must drop you a line 
to sav that it deserves to be written in letters of gold, and 
be put into tlje hands of every citizen of the United States. 
To you, especially, is the country indebted for the passage 
of this bill. May the country ever be grateful ! and may 



318 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

the blessing of the God of the oppressed rest upon you ! 
As a native of Massachusetts, and the son of a Massachu- 
setts mechanic, I feel thankful that one of her senators has, 
under the divine blessing, accomplished such a humane 
deed. 

Although it will at all times give me pleasure to hear 
from you, I do not expect, that, amidst your arduous labors, 
you can acknowledge the receipt of the many letters 
addressed to you. My object is not now, more than here- 
tofore, to draw from you a response, but to assure you of 
the very grateful sense I have of your successful services 
in the case to which I have alluded, and of the eminent 
services rendered to your country throughout your whole 
senatorial career. 

Respectfully and truly yours, 

Lewis Tappan. 

The Jay Homestead, Katouch, 
N.Y., April 17, 18G2. 

My dear Gen. Wilson, — I must thank you, and con- 
gratulate you that our National Government sits, at last, in a 
free capital. Your part in the accomplishment of this great 
triumph of national justice and national dignity will be 
long remembered by a grateful people ; and, if you had not 
done so much else for the country, you might safely rest 
your historic fame on that single act and" your sturdy efforts 
to crown it with success. 

For myself, I can hardly recall without emotion my 
boyish eflPorts to arouse attention to the atrocity of slavery 
in Washington, commenced nearly thirty years ago, and 
those of my father, which I find, from one of Jiis petitions, 
commenced in 1826, as I read the record of the vote in 
the House, and the president's message, and thank God that 



LETTER FROM MR. JAY. 319 

the work of abolition has begun, and the first great step 
boldly taken towards the position of a free republic. 

I trust the good work will be pushed speedily. Slavery 
is doomed ; and it is worse than useless to prolong the agony 
of dissolution. 

Always faithfully yours, 

John Jay. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE REBELLION. SENATORIAL LABORS. SPEECH IN 

PHILADELPHIA, 1863. DEATH OF SLAVERY THE 

LIFE OF THE NATION. HIS PERSISTENT 

EFFORTS TO CARRY ON THE WAR. 

The Conflicting Powers. — Tlie Army and Congress. — Position of Jlr. Wilson. 

— Bill for Sutlers. — Signal Service. — Pay to Officers. — Medical Depart- 
ment. — Volunteers. — Seniority of Commanders. — Storekeepers. — District 
of Columbia. — Medals. — Pay in Advance. — Abolition in District of Co- 
lumbia. — The Confederates. — Militia Bill. — President's Proclamation. — 
Eosecrans. — Bureau of Emancipation. — Enrolment Bill. — Remarks. — 
Colored Youth. — Wounded Soldiers. — Corps of Engineers. — Letter of Dr. 
Silas Reed. — Fall of Vicksburg. — Conference with the Cabinet. — Battle 
of Gettysburg. — Gen. Grant. — Address before the Antislavery Society. — 
Thanks to the Army. — Bounties. — Ambulances. — Colored Soldiers Free. 

— Thirteenth Amendment. — Speech. — Appropriation Bill. — Wives and 
Children of Colored Soldiers Free. — Fourth of July at Washington. — Gen. 
Grant. — " New-Bedfoi"d Mercury." — A Letter. 

AT the commencement of the year 1862 the Union 
was coming slowly and steadily up to bear the tre- 
mendous strain of the Rebellion ; and the moral grandeur 
of the scene has never been surpassed in any crisis of a 
distracted nation. On the one hand were dissolution and 
anarchy ; on the other hand, the Constitution and the lib- 
eration of the slave. The destinies of unborn millions 
were in the conflict. Will the government meet the exi- 
gency ? Yes ; for, while our loyal soldiers were bravely 



SENATORIAL LABORS. 321 

gathering to roll back the tide of war upon the field, our 
loyal Congress-men were as bravely toiling to sustain them, 
anil to break the chains of servitude in the halls of legisla- 
tion. Here, indeed, the battles are really fought. The 
army is but an exponent of power : the power itself is in 
the principles that move the army ; and these are settled by 
the action of the people's representatives. As one of those 
uoble men whose doings will render the Thirty-seventh 
and Thirty-eighth Congresses ever memorable, Mr. Wilson 
exhibited clear-sightedness which no intricacies could baf- 
fle, hope which no disasters could repress, courage which 
no danger could appall, and patriotism which no bribe could 
bend. 

In the full confidence of the government, he gave his 
whole energies of heart and hand to its support, and still 
brought forward measure after measure for the prosecu- 
tion of the war, and for the overthrow of a system, which, 
recognizing the right of property in man, had caused the 
war. But little more than a bare enumeration of the meas- 
ures which he introduced can here be given. 

On the 2d of January, 1862, he presented the bill ap- 
pointing sutlers and defining their duties in the volunteer 
service ; which, after several amendments, became a law on 
the 19th of the following March. On the 9th of January 
he introduced a bill for the better organization of the sig- 
nal department of the army, which was approved on the 
22d day of February ; and on the 2Sth of January a bill 
to define the pay and emoluments of certain officers of the 
army, and for other purposes, which, after a long discus- 
sion, became a law on the 17th of July, 1862. On the 
7th of February he brought forward a bill to increase the 
efficiency of the medical department of the army, which, 
after several amendments, became a law on the sixteenth 



322 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

day of April, 1862. A joint resolution for the payment of 
the moneys of any State to its volunteers was introduced 
by him on the 11th of March, and became a law on the 
nineteenth day of April following ; and also another, on the 
14th of March, assigning command in the same field or 
department to officers of the same grade without regard to 
seniority, which was enacted on the 4th of April, 1862. 
On the 7th of May his bill for the appointment of medical 
storekeepers was brought forward, and approved by the 
president on the 20th of the same month. Ever anxious 
for the improvement of the colored people in the District 
of Columbia, Mr. Wilson, on the 8th of May, moved, as 
an amendment to Mr. Grimes's educational bill, that all 
persons of color in that District shall be amenable to the 
same laws, and tried in the same manner, as the free white 
people, which received the approval of the president on the 
eleventh day of July, 1862 ; and thus the " black code " was 
abolished forever in the national capital. Ever mindful 
of the services of the soldier, he reported, on the thirteenth 
day of May, a joint resolution for the preparation of two 
thousand medals of honor, " with suitable devices, to be 
presented to such non-commissioned officers and privates as 
should distinguish themselves by gallantry in action and 
other soldier-like qualities ; " and this became a law on the 
twelfth day of July, 1862. For the further encouragement 
of enlistments, he introduced a joint resolution on the 4th 
of June (enacted on the 21st of the same month), that the 
soldier who enlisted might receive one month's wages in 
advance ; and on the 12th of June he brought forward an 
additional bill for the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, which, after being amended, received the signa- 
ture of Mr. Lincoln on the twelfth day of July, 1862. 
The activity of the rebels in Tennessee, the retreat of 



SENATORIAL LABORS. 323 

Gen. Banks upon the Potomac, and the indecisive battles of 
Gen, McClellan in front of Richmond, all conspired to dis- 
hearten loyal men, and to fill the government with gloomy 
apprehensions. Mr. Wilson urged upon the Senate 
prompt and decided action. Of the confederates he said, 
*' They have appealed to their people, — to their passions, 
to their prejudices, to their hate ; they have organized their 
people ; they have issued their conscriptions, using every 
man who could do any thing, — no matter how halt or 
maimed he might be, if he could strike a blow ; they have 
carried on their military operations with great administra- 
tion and military ability. We are in one of the darkest 
periods of the contest ; and we had better look our position 
in the face, meet the responsibilities of the hour, rise to the 
demands of the occasion, pour out our money, summon 
our men to the field, go ourselves if we can do any good, 
and overthrow this confederate power, that feels to-day, 
over the recent magnificent triumphs, that it has already 
achieved its independence. Bold and decisive action alone 
in tiie cabinet and in the field can retrieve our adverse 
fortunes, and carry our countiy triumphantly through the 
perils that threaten to dismember the republic." 

Actuated by such sentiments, he introduced on the 
twelfth day of July his effective bill into the Senate, 
authorizing the president to call forth the militia of the 
country ; enrolling all able-bodied men between the ages 
of eighteen and forty-five years ; to accept a hundred 
thousand volunteers as infantry for nine months, and vol- 
unteers for twelve months, with fifty dollars bounty ; to 
fill up the old regiments : also to establish army corps, 
and to receive into the army persons of African descent 
to perform any service for which they may be competent ; 
and providing that persons performing such service shall 



324 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

be forever free, and also the mothers, wives, and children 
of such persons as may be owing service to any men 
engaged in the RebelUon. This important measure, after 
strenuous opposition by Messrs. Davis of Kentucky, Sauls- 
buiy, Powell, and others, was enacted July 17, 1862, and 
was another heavy blow to that institution which had 
brought the country into such a bloody contest. 

But why stop with the emancipation of .the colored sol- 
diers in the army ? Are not three millions longing to be 
free ? Will not the strength of the confederates be les- 
sened by their manumission ? Will not such an act serve 
to harmonize the feehngs of the North ? Has not the 
South, by its revolt, invited it ? The president saw the 
situation, and the readiness of Congress and the army to 
sustain him, and on the first day of January, 1863, sent 
forth his glorious proclamation, which declared " forever 
free " the slaves in the Confederate States. Of the i-ep- 
resentatives at Washington, none hailed that grand 
announcement with more joy than Henry Wilson : none 
had labored for it more persistently ; none saw with 
clearer vision the encouraging effect it would produce upon 
the spirit of the people, and the aid which it would render 
in tire prosecution of the war. 

At the commencement of the year (1863) the hopes 
of the Union men were brightened by the victory of 
Gen. Rosecrans over the rebel forces under Gen. Bragg 
at Murfreesborough, Tenn. ; and on the 8th of January 
Mr. Wilson introduced a resolution tendering thanks to 
the general and his army for their distinguished gal- 
lantry in that action, and it received the signature of the 
president on the third day of the following March. On 
the twelfth day of January he presented in the Senate 
a memorial of the Euiancipation League of his State for 



SENATORIAL LABORS. 325 

a bureau of emancipation, and entered into the discus- 
sions upon this philanthropic measure, which was to 
aid, protect, and elevate " tlie children of the govern- 
ment." 

To bring up the power of the republic to meet the 
exigencies of the war, Mr. Wilson, on the ninth day of 
February, introduced his great bill for enrolling and call- 
ing out the national forces, and for other purposes. It 
consisted of thirty-six sections, the first of which declared 
that " all able-bodied male citizens in the United States 
(with certain exceptions) between the ages of eighteen 
and forty-five shall constitute the national forces, and be 
liable to military duty at the call of the president." By 
the eighteenth section, a bounty of fifty dollars was given 
to i)resent volunteers who re-enlist for one year. This 
important measure was framed with great administrative 
ability ; and, in defence of it, Mr. Wilson said, " I am 
confident the enactment of this bill, embodying so many 
provisions required by the exigencies of the public service, 
will weapon the hands of the nation, fire the drooping 
hearts of the people, thrill the wasting ranks of our legions 
in the field, carry dismay into the councils of treason, and 
give assurance to the nations that the American people 
have the sublime virtue of heroic constancy and endurance 
that will assure the unity and indivisibility of the republic 
of the United States. We have endeavored to frame this 
bdl ao as to bear as lightly as possible upon the toiling 
masses, and to put the burdens, so far as we could do so, 
equally upon the more favored sons of men." 

On a motion of Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania to exempt 
members of Congress from the law, he said, " Its adoption 
would weaken the moral torce of the law. lie wanted every 
28 



326 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

one to feel that this measure was a necessity forced upon 
us by tlie needs of the country ; tliat to be drafted to carry 
this country through tlie impending struggle was the most 
honorable thing that can fall upon an American citizen : " 
and the motion was not carried. After several amend- 
ments, this great measure was approved by the president 
on the third day of March; and the army was thus 
brought into order for the reception of the confederate 
forces on the field of Gettysburg in July following. 

On the 17th of February he brought forward the bill to 
incorporate " the institution for the education of the colored 
youth" in the District of Columbia, wliich was approved 
by the president on the 3d of March ; and on the 10th of 
February a bill to increase the number of major and 
brigadier generals in the army, which became a law on the 
second day of March. His resolution " to facilitate the 
payment of sick and wounded soldiers," and also his bill to 
promote the efficiency of the corps of engineers and of 
the ordnance department, and for other purposes, were 
approved by the president on the third day of March, 
1863. 

At this period, Mr. Wilson, following up the proclamation 
of the president, entered warmly into the senatorial de- 
bates on the- question of rendering aid to Missouri and 
other semi-loyal States for the liberation of their slaves. 
In response to Mr. Henderson of Missouri, he said, " Let 
us stamp upon her now war-desolated fields the words, 
' Immediate emancipatioa ; ' and these blighted fields will 
bloom again, and law and order and peace again will bless 
the dwellings of her people." 

The following letter from a prominent citizen of that 
State will indicate how his services were there regarded: — 



LETTER FEOM DR. REED. 327 

Uxited-States General Hospital, 

Jefferson Barracks, Mo., Feb. 24, 1863. 
Hon, H. WiLsox, U. S. Senate. 

Sir, — Excuse the liberty I take in expi*essing my grati- 
fication at the manner in which you treat the traitors in 
the Senate. 

I have also to thank you from the bottom of my heart 
for the interest and zeal you have manifested in securing 
compensated emancipation for Missouri. 

With this measure successful, this State, in a year or 
two, might almost thank the rebels for their efforts to ruin 
us ; but without it we must sink almost as low as Vir- 
ginia in financial woe and general desolation. 

All good men in Missouri pray daily that Congress may 
see the wisdom of perfecting this aid to loyal slave-ownerp 
of the State. It is not material, perhaps, what sum Con- 
gress appropriates, if the maximum be tliree hundred dol- 
lars for the best slaves, and graduated in proportion for 
females, children, and aged persons. 

I feel the utmost confidence that it will not take ten 
million dollars to pay all loi/al owners, if three hundred dol- 
lars is the highest price to be paid, and a proportionate 
price for the young, aged, and all other classes. I know 
of no slave in Missouri now that would command at private 
sale three hundred dollars, unless the purchaser were misled 
by an impression that he might obtain more by virtue of 
the proposed act of Congress. 

Emancipation in Missouri would soon make it one of the 
greatest States in the Union, and the disinthrahnent of her 
antislavery population would enable us to show the traitors 
in the old free States whether New England is ever to be 
severed from the States of the West. Congress is on the 
right war-path this winter ; and Grod be praised for the 



328 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

bright prospect of soon crushing out the life of the Rebel- 
lion. 

I am, dear sir, very truly, 

Your obedient servant, 

Silas Keed, M.D. 

During the recess of Congress, Mr. Wilson labored with 
ceaseless activity to sustain the administration in the prose- 
cution of the war. Moving from point to point, he was 
now assisting the Sanitary Commission, now writing letters 
to the soldiers, now examining the claims of rival officers 
to promotion, now suggesting more vigorous measures to 
the cabinet, now urging moneyed men to aid the govern- 
ment, and now addressing vast audiences in support of 
the Union cause. In the great rejoicings at Washington, 
July 7, on the surrender of Vicksbnrg, he participated, 
and addressed a vast multitude in front of the presiden- 
tial mansion. On the same day, with Senators Fessenden 
and Morrill, he had a conference with the cabinet, which 
resulted in the ordering of five vessels to protect the sea- 
board from Nantucket to the British Provinces. 

Mr. Wilson also shared with the administration in the 
profound anxiety for the issue of the bloody conflict at 
Gettysburg (July 1, 2, and 3), and put forth his best 
efforts to assuage the sufferings of wounded soldiers. 

The delay of Gen. Meade in following up his victory 
led the government soon to turn attention to the vic- 
torious Grant as the man to lead the army on to Rich- 
mond ; and Mr. Wilson urged his nomination as com- 
mander. 

On his way to resume his seat in Congress in December, 
on the 9th of July, he took part in the celebration of the 
thirtieth anniversary of the American Antisluvery Society; 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 329 

and made an address remarkable for its earnestness and 
vigor. Contrasting the antislavery cause at the institu- 
tion of the society with wliat it was in the closing month 
of 1863, he eloquently said, — 

" Then a few unknown and nameless- men were its 
apostles : now the most accomplished intellects in America 
are its champions. Then a few proscribed and hunted 
followers rallied around its banners : now it has laid its 
grasp upon the conscience of the nation, and millions rally 
around the folds of its flag. Then not a statesman in 
America accepted its doctrines, or advocated its measures : 
now it controls more than twenty States, has a majority 
in both Houses of Congress, and the chief magistrate of 
the republic decrees the emancipation of three millions of 
men. (Applause.) Then every free State was against 
it : now West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri 
pronounce for the emancipation of their bondmen. Then 
the public press covered it with ridicule and contempt: 
now the most powerful journals in America are its organs, 
scattering its truths broadcast over all the land. Then the 
religious, benevolent, and literary institutions of the land 
rebuked its doctrines, and proscribed its advocates : now it 
shapes, moulds, and fashions them at its pleasure. Then 
political organizations trampled disdainfully upon it: now 
it looks down in the pride of conscious power upon the 
wrecked political fragments that float at its feet. Then it 
was impotent and powerless : now it holds public men and 
political organizations in the hollow of its hand. (Ap- 
plause.) Then the public voice sneered at and defied it : 
now it is master of America, and 'has only to be true to 
itself to bury slavery so deep that the hand of no return- 
ing despotism can reach it. (Great applause.) 

"The way to trmmph," he continued, " is to assume 



330 LIFE OF HENBY WILSON. 

that the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, emancipating 
three million three hundred thousand slaves in the ten 
rebel States, is the irrepealable law. of this land ; that this 
Christian nation is pledged to every slave, to the country, 
to the world, and to Almighty God, to see that every- 
one of these bondmen is free forever and forevermore. 
(Great applause.) Let the loyal men of America assume, 
as the eternal law of the land, that slavery does not now 
exist in the disloyal States ; that every black man there is 
free ; that the President of the United States has pledged 
the physical power of all America to enforce the proclama- 
tion of freedom ; that seven hundred thousand loyul 
bayonets bear that proclamation upon their glittering 
points." (Applause.) 

He thus referred to Gen. Grant : — 

" Sir, I saw the other day a letter from Gen. Grant, 
who has fought so many battles for the republic, and won 
them all (enthusiastic applause), — the hero who hurled his 
legions up the mountains before Chattanooga, and fought a 
battle for the Union above the clouds. (Applause.) The 
hero of Vicksburg says, ' I have never been an anti- 
slavery man ; but I try to judge justly of what I see. I 
made up my mind when this war commenced that the 
North and South could only live together in peace as one 
nation, and they could only be one nation by being a free 
nation, (Applause.) Slavery, the corner-stone of the 
so-called confederacy, is knocked out ; and it will take 
more men to keep black men slaves than to put down the 
Rebellion. Much as I desire peace, I am opposed to any 
peace until this question of slavery is forever settled.' 
That is the position of the leading general of our 
armies. . . . 

" The crimes of two centuries have brought this terrible 



SENATORIAL LABORS. 831 

war upon us ; but if this generation, upon whom God 
has laid his chastisements, will yet be true to hberty 
and humanity, peace will return again to bless this 
land now rent and torn by civil, strife. Then we shall 
heal the wounds of war, enlighten the dark intellect of 
the emancipated bondman, and make our country the 
model republic, to which the Christian world shall turn 
with respect and admiration." 

" The speaker retired," says " The Chronicle," " amid 
the deafening plaudits of the audience." 

In the Senate, on the 14th of December, Mr. Wilson 
introduced resolutions expressing the thanks of Congress to 
Gens. Hooker, Meade, Howard, and Banks, their officers 
and men, for gallantry at Gettysburg and Port Hudson ; 
which received the signature of the president. He also 
introduced at the same time a bill " to increase the bounty 
to volunteers, and the pay of the army ; " and also, on the 
23d of the same month, the bill " to establish a uniform 
system of ambulances in the United States," which was 
indorsed by eminent generals, commanders in the army, 
and became a law on the 11th of March, 1864. 

Among the numerous measures introduced by Mr. 
Wilson into Congress in 1864, we may cite as of great 
importance an amendment in the bill enacted on the 24th 
of February, declaring that every colored soldier, on being 
mustered into the service, should, not by the act of his 
master, but by the authority of government, be made for- 
ever free. By this provision, more than twenty thousand 
slaves in Kentucky alone received their freedom. 

In the exciting debates on the Thirteenth Amendment 
of the Constitution, the first article of which is, " Neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment 
for crime whereof the party shall have been duly con- 



332 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place 
subject to their jurisdiction," Mr. Wilson most earnestly 
engaged. His speech in the Senate on the 28th of March 
has in it the ring of a clarion. In some respects, it is a 
master-piece of eloquence. Intensely earnest, fervid, fear- 
less, it grasps the question with Websterian vigor, and 
strikes the fated institution with gigantic blows. The 
speech, as circulated, has for its significant title, " The 
Death of Slavery is the Life of the Nation ; " and 
this the nation now believes. It closes with these grandly- 
impressive words : — 

" But, sir, the crowning act in this series of acts for the 
restriction and extinction of slavery in America is this 
proposed amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the 
existence of slavery forevermore in the republic of the 
United States. If this amendment shall be incorporated 
by the Avill of the nation into the Constitution of the 
United States, it will obliterate the last lingering vestiges 
of the slave system — its chattelizing, degrading, and 
bloody codes ; its dark, malignant, barbarizing spirit ; all 
it was and is ; every thing connected with it or pertaining 
to it — from the face of the nation it has scarred with moral 
desolation, from the bosom of the country it has reddened 
with the blood and strewn with the graves of patriotism. 
The incorporation of this amendment into the organic law 
of the nation will make impossible forevermore the re- 
appearing of the discarded slave system, and the returning 
of the despotism of the slave-masters' domination. 

" Then, sir, when this amendment to the Constitution 
shall be consummated, the shackle will full from the limbs 
of the harmless bondmen, and the lash drop from the 
weary hand of the taskmaster. Then the sharp cry of 
the ao-onizino; hearts of severed families will cease to vex 



HIS EFFORTS TO CARRY ON THE WAR. 333 

tlie weary ear of the nation, and to pierce the ear of Him 
whose judgments are now avenging the wrongs of cen- 
turies. Then the slave-mart, pen, and auction-block, 
with their clanking fetters for human limbs, will disappear 
from the land- they have brutalized, and the schoolhouse 
will raise to enlighten the darkened intellect of a race 
imbruted by long years of enforced ignorance. Then the 
sacred rights of human nature, the hallowed family rela- 
tions of husband and wife, parent and child, will be pro- 
tected by the guardian spirit of that law which makes 
sacred alike the proud homes and lowly cabins of freedom. 
Then the scarred earth, blighted by the sweat and tears 
of bondage, will bloom again under the quickening culture 
of rewarded toil. Then the wronged victim of the slave 
system, the poor white man, the sand-hiller, the clay-eater, 
of the wasted fields of Carolina, impoverished, debased, 
dishonored by the system that makes toil a badge of dis- 
grace, and the instruction of the brain and soul of man a 
crime, will lift his abashed forehead to the skies, and begin 
to run the race of improvement, progress, and elevation. 
Then the nation, ' regenerated and disinthralled by the 
genius of universal emancipation,' will run the career of 
development, power, and glory, quickened, animated, and 
guided by the spirit of the Christian democracy that ' pulls 
not the highest down, but lifts the lowest up.' 

" Our country is now floating on the stormy waves of 
civil war. Darkness lowers, and tempests threaten. The 
waves ai-e rising and foaming aiid breaking around us and 
over us with ingulfing fury ; but, amid the thick gloom, 
the star of duty casts its clear radiance over the dark and 
troubled waters, making luminous our pathway. Our 
duty is as plain to the clear vision of uitelligent patriotism 



334 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

as though it were written in letters of light on the bending 
arches of the skies. That duty is, with every conception 
of the brain, every throb of the heart, every aspiration of 
the soul, by thought, by word, and by deed, to feel, to 
think, to speak, to act, so as to obliterate the last vestiges 
of slavery in America, subjugate rebel slave-masters to the 
authority of the nation, hold up the weary arm of our 
struggling government, crowd with heroic manhood the 
ranks of our armies that are bearing the destinies of the 
country on the points of their glittering bayonets, and thus 
forever blast the last hope of the rebel chiefs. Then the 
waning star of the Rebellion will go down in eternal night, 
and the star of peace ascend the heavens, casting its mild 
radiance over fields now darkened by the storms of this 
fratricidal war. Then, when ' the war-drums throb no 
longer, and the battle-flags are furled,' our absent sons, with 
the laurels of victory on their brows, will come back to 
gladden our households and fill the vacant chairs around 
our hearthstones. Then the stars of united America, now 
obscured, will re-appear, radiant with splendor, on the fore- 
head of the skies, to illume the pathway and gladden the 
heart of struggling humanity." 

Ever intent on justice, and earnest for equal rights, 
Mr. Wilson succeeded in introducing into the appropria- 
tion bill enacted on the fifteenth day of June, 1864, a 
provision to the effect that " all persons of color who had 
been or might be mustered into the military service should 
receive the same uniform, clothing, rations, medical and 
hospital attendance, and pay," as otiier soldiers, from the 
beginning of 1864. He fought persistently to obtain 
justice for the colored troops of Massachusetts ; and 
finally succeeded, in face of stanch opposition, iii carry- 



soldiers' wives and children. 335 

ino; through Congress his important and liumane meas- 
ure, making the wives and children of those whose hus- 
bands and fathers were fighting for the Union forever 
free. 

In support of this resolution he said, " It is estimated 
that from seventy-five to a hundred thousand wives and 
cliildren of these soldiers are now held in slaver3% It is a 
burning shame to this country. . . . Wasting diseases, 
weary marches, and bloody battles, are now decimating our 
armies. The country needs soldiers, must have soldiers. 
Let the Senate, then, act now. Let us hasten the enact- 
ment of this beneficent measure, inspired by patriotism and 
hallowed by justice and humanity, so that, ere merry 
Christmas shall come, the intelligence shall be flashed over 
the land to cheer the hearts of the nation's defenders and 
arouse the manhood of the bondman, that, on the forehead 
of the soldier's wife and the soldier's child, no man can 
write ' Slave.' " This measure became a law on the third 
day of March, 1865 ; and, six months afterwards, Gen. 
Palmer estimated that by its operation nearly seventy-five 
thousand Avomen and children had, in Kentucky alone, 
been made free. 

At the celebration of the 4th of July by the freedmen 
in the District of Columbia this year, he was present, 
and made an encouraging address. " I predict," said he 
to them, " that, before five years have rolled around, you 
will be allowed to vote, and right here in Washington 
too." Scarcely half that time passed before his hopeful 
words were realized. 

Mr. Wilson's policy, from the beginning of the war, was 
to crush the Rebellion just as quick as possible. He dep- 
recated the delay of the generals in command, and ever 



336 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

urged a forward movement. He voted for the confirma- 
tion of Gen. Grant, March 2, in the Senate, because he 
felt assured that he would allow the enemy no time to rally 
from his repulses ; and yet his motives were continually 
misinterpreted. To a statement in " The New- York 
Herald," that he had been to Washington to urge an 
armistice, he made this distinct reply in a letter dated 
Natick, Aug. 20,- 1864: — 

" There is not the slightest foundation for the report, as 
I never entertained for a moment any other thought than 
that of conquering a peace by the defeat of the rebel 
armies." 

At this time " The New-Bedford Mercury " said of 
him, " Henry Wilson has, from the day he entered the 
Senate to the present moment, in our judgment, and we 
believe in the judgment of the great body of the people 
of the State, been an able public servant. No man has 
been more laborious in the committee-room, more ready 
in the Senate-chamber, and we believe more single-hearted 
and unselfish in purpose to sustain the govei-nment in its 
trial-hours, than HenYy Wilson." 

The following, among hundreds of letters received from 
all parts of the country, will also indicate how the soldiers 
and the people viewed his senatorial course : — 

" I cannot close this letter, my dear sir, without thank- 
ing you for the upright and manly course you have pur- 
sued all through this terrible war ; for your grand, good 
words, and the strong blows you have given to the cause 
of all our woe, — slavery. At last your efltbrts and those 
of your noble colleagues are telling, and the government 
seems about to act justly towards our colored soldiers. 



A LETTER. 337 

God grant this tardy justice may help to prevent more 
massacres ! 

•' I am, sir, with profound respect, very truly yours." 

His friends urged Mr. Wilson to accept the nomination 
for vice-president tiiis year ; but he declined to be a candi- 
date. 

29 



CHAPTER XVII. 



KE-ELECTION TO UNITED-STATES SENATE. — HIS VIEW OF 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ADDRESS AT WASHINGTON. 

SILVER WEDDING. — ANTISLAVERY MEASURES IN 
CONGRESS. 

Mr. Wilson returned to the United-States Senate. — Notice of Election by " The 
Boston Journal." — Freedman's Bureau. — Military Appointments. — Visit to 
Fort Sumter. — Death of Mr. Lincoln. — Mr. Wilson's View of him. — Speech 
at Washington Jul J' 4. — Mayor Wallach. — Advice to the Colored People. 

— The Course of the Executive. — Silver Wedding. — l>escription of. — 
Articles presented. — Respect of his Townsmen. — Record of Antislavery 
Measures in Congress. — Character of the Work. — Opinion of " The Atlan- 
tic Monthly." — Summary of the Work. — Slaves used for Military Purposes 
made Free. — Fugitives. — District of Columbia. — "Black Code." — Wit- 
nesses. — Schools. — Railroads. — TeiTitories Free. — Emancipation. — Cap- 
tives of War. — Rebel Claimants of Slaves. — Hayti and Liberia. — Slaves in 
Military Service. — Fugitive-slave Acts. — Slave-Trade. — Courts, Testimony 
in. — Reconstruction. — United-States Mail. — Wives and Children of Slaves. 

— Bureau of Freedmen. — Amendment of the Constitution. — The Negro a 
Citizen.— Colored People indebted to the Labors of Mr. Wilson. 

IN February, 1865, Mr. Wilson was re-elected United*- 
States senator for tlie term of six years. There was some 
delay in the election on the part of the conservative branch 
of the General Court, instigated, said " The Journal," "by 
a few eminently respectable parties who cannot forget that 
Mr. Wilson was once a shoemaker. We should like to see 
them," it continued, " go before the people on that issue. 
They would hear such a response as would convince them 



DEATH OF MR. LINCOLN. 339 

that Massachusetts esteems the sterling quahtles of a self- 
made man, an astute statesman, and an active patriot, over 
the finest strain of blood or the most eminent respecta- 
bility." 

In Marcli of this year, Mr. Wilson, from the Committee 
of Conference, reported a new bill for the establishment 
ot a freedman's bureau, whose object was the supervision 
and relief of the freedmen and refugees. Tliis important 
bill was carried through both Houses against strenuous 
opposition, and received, immediately on its passage, the 
president's approval. 

As, by the Constitution, the appointment of officers by 
the president must receive the confirmation of the Senate, 
it was called to act upon ten thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-one military nominations, ranging from second 
lieutenants up to Lieut.-Gen. Grant, during the four years 
of the Rebellion ; and this vast amount of labor fell upon 
that small Military Committee of which Mr. Wilson was 
and still is chairman. 

. In the crowning of the Union arms with success by the 
surrender of Gen. Lee in April, Mr. Wilson saw with 
inexpressible gratitude the realization of his hopes and 
labors carried on twenty years for the overthrow of the 
gigantic slave power in America ; and he left Washino-ton 
to be present at the raising of the Union flag once more to 
float above Fort Sumter. Wiiile on board the boat off" 
Hilton Head, he heard the startling news that the president 
of the nation, Abraham Lincoln, had been stricken down 
by the ruthless hand of J. Wilkes Booth ; and he imme- 
diately hastened back to Washington to assist in the 
emergency, and to share in the sorrows of the afflicted 
people. Witli Mr. Lincoln his relations had been intimate, 

d for his honesty and ability he entertained profound 



an 



340 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

respect. In an address (May 3) before the New-England 
Historic-Genealogical Society, of which he became a member 
in 1859, he said of Mr. Lincoln, that " he would pass into 
history as the foremost man of his age. He was a genuine 
product of our democratic institutions, and had a living 
faith in their permanency. His sympathy for the poor and 
the ojipressed was hearty and genuine. Of his mind, one 
characteristic was the povVer of stating an argument clearly, 
and of quickly detecting a fallacy. He had also a felicity 
of expression. There were many phrases of power and 
beauty in his letters." The speech at Gettysburg was 
instanced as containing some of the noblest utterances of 
any age. 

He also said of him in his address in Chicago, Septem- 
ber, 1866, "Abraham Lincoln was always patriotic, always 
true to liberty, justice, humanity, and Cliristian civiliza- 
tion. He was true to his friends, and always considerate. 
If he moved slowly, he always moved. His face was 
always in the right direction." 

Mr. Wilson attended the colored people's celebration in 
the presidential grounds at Washington, July 4, 1865, and 
said in his address to them, — 

" I am not here to find ftiult with the government, how- 
ever ; though I fear that the golden moment to secure jus- 
tice, and base our peace on the eternal principle of right, 
was not taken. I have faith in the motives and purposes 
of the administration, and shall keep my fiiith, unless it 
shall be broken by future deeds. I have fiiith in the mo- 
tives and purposes of Pres. Johnson, who told the colored 
men in the capital of his own Tennessee that he would be 
their Moses. Andrew Johnson will, I am sure, be to you 
what Abraham Lincoln would have been had he been 
spared to complete the great work of emancipation and 
enfranchisement. 



ADDRESS AT WASHINGTON. 341 

♦' Pardoned rebels, and rebels yet unpardoned, flippantly 
tell us that they hold in their hands, yet red with loyal 
blood, the rights of loyal colored men, of the heroes scarred 
and maimed beneatli the dear old flag. I tell these repent- 
ant and unrepentant but conquered and subdued rebels, 
that, while they hold the suffrage of the loyal black men in 
their hands, we, the loyal men of America, hold in our 
hands their lost privilege to hold office in the civil service, 
army, or navy. The Congress of the United States has 
placed upon the statute-book a law forever prohibitino- 
any one who has borne arras against the country, or given 
aid, comfort, and countenance to the Rebellion, from hold- 
ing any office of honor, profit, or emolument, in the civil, 
military, or naval service of the United States. . . . 
■ " You, sir, invited Mayor Wallach to be here to-day ; 
but I don't see him. I have a sort of dim idea, that, if you 
held the right of suff"rage. Mayor Wallach, and perhaps 
the whole city government, would be here. (Cheers.) 
To insure the attendance of the Mayor of Washington next 
year, I would suggest that you early send your petitions to 
Congress asking for the ballot. (' We will .') I am a 
Yankee, and have the right to guess ; and I guess you will 
get it." (Great applause.) 

But from the appointments of the president for the South, 
from his sympathy for the men so recently engaged in the 
Rebellion, and from his treasonable declarations, the senator 
saw that the question of slavery was by no means settled, 
and that the great impediment in the way of settlement 
was in the executive chair. 

His fears were openly expressed in an eloquent speech at 
the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, N.Y., Oct. 25, wherein 
he describes the recent rapid growth of insurrectionary 



342 LIFE OF HENRY WILSOX. 

sentiment in the Confederate States under the fostering 
patronage of the president. 

" Let the late slave-masters, from the Potomac to the 
Mexican line, fully understand that you are amenable to the 
same laws as themselves ; that you are to be tried for their 
violation in the same manner, and punished in the same 
degree. (Cheers.) Let them know that henceforth you 
will utter your own thoughts, make your own bargains, 
enjoy the fruits of your own labor, go where you please 
throughout the bounds of the republic, and none have the 
right to molest or make you afraid. (Applause.) If my 
voice to-day could penetrate the ear of the colored men of 
my country, I would s'ay to them, that the intelligence, 
character, arid wealth of the nation imperatively demand 
their freedom, protection, and the recognition of their rights. 
I would say to them, ' Prove yourselves, by patience, 
endurance, industry, conduct, and character, worthy of all 
that the millions of Christian men and women have done 
and are doing to make for you — that Declaration of Lide- 
pendence, read here to-day — the living faith of United 
America.' " (Loud and prolonged cheering.) 

On the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage, Oct. 
27, 1865, the friends and neighbors of Mr. and Mrs. 
Wilson assembled at their house in Natick for the celebra- 
tion of their "silver wedding." Although the night was 
stDrmy, a large number of ladies and gentlemen from their 
own and from the neighboring towns were present ; and 
with mutual congratulations, speeches, poetical recitations, 
instrumental music, and the singing of songs, a bountiful 
collation, and the outflow of good will, the festival was full 
of life and pleasure. Among those present were Messrs. 
Hannibal Hamlin, Charles Sumner, Anson Burlinganie, 
Oakes Ames, William CLiflin, Ginery Twitchell, Clua'les 



SILVER WEDDING. 343 

W. Slack, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe. Mrs. Wilson 
received her guests with her usual unaffected grace and 
courtesy, and received a purse of four thousand dollars, 
presented by the hand of William Ciaflin. An address 
was made by the Rev. C. M. Tyler, Mr. Wilson's pastor 
at that time ; and a poem b}^ Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was 
sung, from which we cite the following stanza : — 

*' But Wilson from the lowlier base, 
The silver vantage gaining, 
Climbs ever towards the golden grace, 
With labor uncomplaining." 

Another poet, referring to Mrs. Wilson, wrote : — 

" Thus every wish his heart could frame 
In her reality became : 
Affection, undiminished still 
By clouded brow or wayward will ; 
And that still lovelier, holier grace 
That beams upon a mother's face, — 
These round his path have shed a light 
JMild as the moon of summer's night." 

Many elegant articles of silver were presented to Mr. 
and Mrs. Wilson, among which was a very beautiful silver 
tea-service from the citizens of Natick. On subscribing 
for this, one of them characteristically said, " That is for 
the MAN, not for his principles." As a man, Mr. Wilson's 
townsmen, even those bitterly opposing his political opin- 
ions, have always held him hii^h in their reo-ard and 
honor. His son, Lieut.-Col. Henry Hamilton Wilson, 
was at this time in command of the Hundred-and-fourth 
Regiment of United-States colored troops at Beaufort, 
S.C. One of his friends on the occasion truly said or 
sunn, — 



344 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

" A silver wedding claims a silvery verse; 
And Wilson well deserves a poet's lay-: 
But I in humbler measure must rehearse 
How fairly earned the honors of this day. 
For friendship here puts on more public guise : 
The man we love has been the people's friend : 
Not wedded faith more sacred in his eyes 
Than Truth to champion, and the poor defend." 

Mr. Wilson gave the world this year a work of great and 
permanent value, bearing the title of " History of the Anti- 
slavery Measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth 
United-States Congresses, 1861-65. By Henry Wilson." 
It contains four hundred and twenty-four pages octavo, and 
most lucidly exhibits the course of national legislation on 
the slave question, from the opening of the Rebellion until 
the overthrow of the system by the adoption of the anti- 
slavery amendment to the Constitution of the United States. . 
The work is written with great candor by one who, as we 
have seen, took part in the legislation, framing several 
of the most important measures, and carrying them, against 
persistent opposition, through Congress. The style is dig- 
nified and manly ; the speakers present their views in their 
own language ; and the grounds on which the bills are 
framed are very ably and distinctly stated. The abstract 
of the work accomplished by the fearless advocates of 
freedom in the closing pages gives with clearness the 
results accomplished, and a just idea of the burden taken 
by this legislation from the bondman and the Union. 

" Tliis volume," says " The Atlantic Monthly," " is a 
labor-saving machine of great power to all who desire or 
need a clear view of the course of Congressional legislation 
on measures of emancipation ; " and Mrs. Stowe character- 
izes it as " exhibiting the magnificent morality, the daunt- 



ANTISLAVERY MEASURES IN CONGRESS. 345 

less courage, the unwearied faith, hope, and charity, that 
are the crown jewels of the republic." 

Tlie closinor summary of the achievements of the friends 
of freedom given in this work is so well made, and is such 
a valuable historical record, that we think it worthy of 
transcription. 

" The annals of the nation," says the author, " bear the 
amplest evidence that the patriots and statesmen who 
carried the country through the Revolution from colonial 
dependence to national independence, framed the Con- 
stitution, and inaugurate'd the Federal Government, hoped 
and beUeved that slavery would pass away at no distant 
period under., the influences of the institutions they had 
founded. But those illustrious men tasted death without 
witnessing the realization of their hopes and anticipations. 
The rapid development of the resources of tiie country 
under the protection of a stable government, the openino-- 
up of new and rich lands, the expansion of territory, and 
perhaps, more than all, the wonderful growth and impor- 
tance of the cotton culture, enhanced the value of labor, 
and increased many-fold the price of slaves. Under the 
stimulating influences of an ever-increasing pecuniary 
interest, a political power was speedily developed, which 
early manifested itself in the National Government. For 
nearly two generations, the' slaveholding class, into whose 
power the government early passed, dictated the policy of 
the nation. But the presidential election of 1860 resulted 
in the defeat of the slaveholding class, and in the success 
of men who religiously believe slavery to be a grievous 
wrong to the slave, a blight upon the prosperity, and a 
stain upon the name, of the country. Defeated in its aims, 
broken in its power, humiliated in its pride, the slave- 
holding class raised at once the banners of treason. Re- 



346 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

tirinfT from tlie chambers of Concrress, abandonini]; the seats 
of power to men wlio had persistently opposed tlieir ag- 
gressive policy, they brouglit to an abrnpt close the record 
of half a century of slavery measures in Congress. 
Then, when slavery legislation ended, antislavery legis- 
lation began. . . . 

" When the Rebellion culminated in active liostilities, it 
was seen that thousands of slaves were used for military 
purposes by the rebel forces. To weaken the forces of 
the Rebellion, the Thirty-seventh Congress decreed that 
such slaves should be forever free. 

" As the Union armies advanced into the rebel States, 
slaves, inspired by the hope of personal rreedom, flocked 
to their encampments, claiming protection against rebel 
masters, and offering to work and fight for the flag whose 
stars for the first time gleamed upon their vision with the 
radiance of liberty. Rebel masters and rebel-sympathizing 
masters sought the encampments of the loyal forces, de- 
manding the surrender of the escaped fugitives ; and they 
were often delivered up by officers of the armies. To 
weaken the power of the insurgents, to strengthen the 
loyal forces, and assert the claims of humanity, the Thirty- 
seventh- Congress enacted an article of war, dismissing 
from the service officers guilty of surrendering these 
fugitives. 

" Three thousand persons were held as slaves in the 
District of Columbia, over which the nation exercised 
exclusive jurisdiction : the Thirty-seventh Congress made 
these three thousand bondmen freemen, and made slave- 
holding in the capital of the nation forevermore im- 
possible. 

" Laws and ordinances existed in the national capital 
that pressed with merciless rigor u[)on the colored peoi)le : 



ANTISLAVERY MEASUEES IN CONGEESS. 347 

tlie Tlwrty-seventh Congress enncted that colored persons 
should be tried for the same offences in tiie same manner, 
and be subject to the same punishments, as white persons ; 
thus abrogating the ' black code.' 

'" Coh)red persons in the capital of this Clu'istian nation 
were denied the right to testify in the judicial tribunals ; 
thus placing their property, their liberties, and their lives, 
in the power of unjust and wicked men : the Thirty-seventh 
Congress enacted that persons should not be excluded as 
witnesses in tlie courts of the District on account of color. 

" In the capital of the nation, colored persons were 
taxed to support schools from which their own children 
were excluded; and no public schools were provided for 
the instruction of more than four thousand youth : the 
Thirty-eighth Congress provided by law that public schools 
should be established for colored children, and that tlie 
same rate of aj)propriations for colored schools should be 
made as are made for schools for the education of white 
children. 

'' The railways chartered by Congress excluded from 
their cars colored persons, without the authority of law: 
Congress enacted that there should be no exclusion from 
any car on account of color. 

" Into the Territories of tlie United States — ^one-third 
of the surface of the country — the slaveholding class 
claimed the right to take and hold their slaves under the 
protection of law: the Thirty-seventh Congress prohibited 
slavei-y forever in all the existing territory, and in all 
territory which may hereafter be acquired ; thus stamping 
freedom for all, forever, upon the public domain. 

" As the war progressed, it became more clearly appar- 
ent that the rebels hoped to win the border slave States ; 
that rebel sympathizers in those States hoped to join the 



348 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

rebel States ; and tliat emancipation in loyal State^would 
brino; repose to tlieni, and weaken the power of the 
Rebellion : the Thirty-seventh Congress, on the recom- 
mendation of tiie president, by the passage of a joint 
resolution, pledged the faith of the nation to aid loyal 
States to emancipate the slaves therein. 

" The hoe and spade of the rebel slave were hardly less 
potent for the Rebellion than the rifle and bayonet ot the 
rebel soldier. Slaves sowed and reaped for the rebels, 
enabling the rebel leaders to fill the wasting ranks of 
their armies, and feed them. To weaken the military 
forces and the power of the Rebellion, the Thirty-seventh 
Congress decreed that all slaves of j^ersons giving aid and 
comfort to the Rebellion, escaping from such persons, and 
taking refuge within the lines of the army ; all slaves 
captured from such persons, or deserted by them ; all 
slaves of such persons, being within any place occupied by 
rebel forces, and afterwards occupied by the forces of the 
United States, — shall be captives of war, and shall be for- 
ever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves. 

" The provisions of the Fugitive-slave Act permitted 
disloyal masters to claim, and they did claim, the return 
of their fugitive bondmen : the Thirty-seventh Congress 
enacted that no fugitive should be surrendered until the 
claimant made oath that he had not given aid and comfort 
to the Rebellion. 

" The progress of the Rebellion demonstrated its power, 
and the needs of the imperilled nation. To strengthen 
the physical forces of the United States, the Thirty-seventh 
Congress authorized the president to receive into the 
military service persons of African descent ; and every 
such person mustered into the service, his mother, his 
wife and children, owing service or labor to any person 



ANTISLAVERY IHEASURES IN CONGRESS. 349 

who should give aid and comfort to the Rebellion, was 
made forever fiee. 

" The African slave-trade had been carried on by slave 
pirates under the protection of the flag of the United 
States. To extirpate from the seas that inhuman traffic, 
and to vindicate the sullied honor of the nation, the ad- 
ministration early entered into treaty stipulations with the 
British Government for the mutual right of search within 
certain limits ; and the Thirty-seventh Congress hastened 
to enact the appropriate legislation to carry the treaty into 
effect. 

" The slaveholding class, in the pride of power, per- 
sistently refused to recognize the independence of Hayti 
and Liberia ; thus dealing unjustly towards those nations, 
to the detriment of the commercial interests of the coun- 
try : the Thirty-seventh Congress recognized the inde- 
pendence of those republics by authorizing the president to 
establish diplomatic relations with them. 

" By the provisions of law, white male citizens alone 
were enrolled in the militia. In the amendment to the 
acts for calling out the militia, the Thirty-seventh Congress 
provided for the enrolment and drafting of citizens, without 
regard to color; and, by the Enrolment Act, colored per- 
sons, free or slave, are enrolled and drafted the same as 
white men : the Thirty-eighth Congress enacted that 
colored soldiers shall have the same pay, clothing, and 
rations, and be placed in all respects upon the same footing, 
as white soldiers. To encourage enlistments, and to aid 
emancipation, the Thirty-eighth Congress decreed that every 
slave mustered into the military service shall be free for- 
ever ; thus enabling every slave fit for military service to 
secure personal freedom. 

*' By the provisions of the fugitive-slave acts, slave- 



350 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

masters could hunt their absconding bondmen, require tbe 
people to aid in tlieir recapture, and have them returned 
at the expense of the nation : the Thirty-eljrhth Congress 
erased all fugitive-slave acts from the statutes of tlie 
republic. 

" The law of 1807 legalized the coastwise slave-trade : 
the Thirty-eighth Congress repealed that act, and made the 
trade illegal. 

" The courts of the United States receive such testi- 
mony as is permitted in the States where the courts are 
holden ; several of the States exclude the testimony of 
colored persons : tTie Thirty-eighth Congress made it 
legal for colored persons to testily in all the courts of the 
United States. 

*. " Different views are entertained by public men relative 
to the reconstruction of the governments of the seceded 
States and the validity of the president's proclamation of 
emancipation : the Thirty-eighth Congress passed a bill 
providing for the reconstruction of the governments of the 
rebel States, and lor the emancipation of the slaves in those 
States ; but it did not receive the approval of the president. 

'' Colored persons were not permitted to carry the United- 
States mails: the Thirty-eighth Congress repealed the ])ro- 
hibitory legislation, and made it lawful for persons of color 
to carry the mails. 

" Wives and children of colored persons in the military ' 
and naval service of the United States were often held as 
slaves; and, while husbands and fathers were absent fight- 
ing the battles of the country, these wives and children 
were sometimes removed and sold, and often treated with 
cruelty: the Thirty-eighth Congress made free the wives 
and children of all persons engaged in the military or 
naval service of the country. 



ANTISLAVERY MEASUHES IN CONGRESS. 351 

"The disorganization of the slave system, and the exi- 
gencies of civil war, liave thrown thousands of freednien 
upon the charity of the nation: to relieve their immediate 
needs, and to aid them throuo;h the transition period, the 
Tiiirty-ei<;htli Congress established a bureau ot freedmen. 

" Tlie prohibition of slavery in the Territories, its abo- 
lition in the District of Columbia, the freedom of colored 
soldiers and their wives and children, emancipation in 
Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri, and, by the re- 
organized State authorities, of Virginia, Teimessee, and 
Louisiana, and the jiresident's Emancipation Proclamation, 
disorganized the slave system, and practically left few 
persons in bondage ; but slavery still continued in Dela- 
ware and Kentucky, and the slave codes remained unre- 
pealed in the rebel States. To annihilate the slave system, 
its codes and usages; to make slavery impossible, and 
freedom universal, — the Thirt3'-eighth Congress submitted 
to the people an antislavery amendment to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. The adoption of that crowning 
measure assures freedom to all. 

"Such are the ' Antislaveky Measures' of the Thirty- 
seventh and Thirty-eighth Congresses during the past four 
crowded years. Seldom in the history of nations is it 
given to any body of legislators or lawgivers to enact or 
institute a series of measures so vast in their scope, so 
comprehensive in their character, so patriotic, just, and 
humane. 

"But, while the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eightli Con- 
gresses were enacting this antislavery legislation, other 
agencies were working to the consummation of the same 
end, — the complete and final abolition of slavery. The 
president proclaims three and a half millions of bondmen 
in the rebel States henceforward and forever free. Mary- 



3o2 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

land, Virginia, and Missouri adopt immediate and uncon- 
ditional emancipation. The partially re-organized rebel 
States of Virginia and Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisi- 
ana, accept and adopt the unrestricted abolition of slavery. 
Illinois and other States hasten to blot from their statute- 
books their dishonoring ' black codes.' Tlie attorney- 
general officially pronounces the negro a citizen of the 
United States. The negro, who had no status in the Su- 
preme Court, is admitted by the chief justice to practise 
as an attorney before that august tribunal. Christian men 
and women follow the loyal armies with the agencies of 
mental and moral instruction to fit and prepare the en- 
franchised freedmen for the duties of the higher condition 
of lite now opening before them." 

In these labors Mr. Wilson bore a prominent and honor- 
able part ; and to no man living are th,e colored people of 
this country under higher obligation for their liberty. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

contest between the president and congress. mr. 

"Wilson's views of reconstruction. — reply to mr. 
cowan. speech on mr. stevens's resolu- 
tion, etc. religious views. military 

measures in congress. 



Course of the President. — Reconstruction Difficult. — Mr. Wilson's View. — 
No Desire to degrade the South. — Bill to maintain the Rights of the Freed- 
nien. — Supports Mr. Trumbull's Bill to enlarge the Freedmf n's Bureau. — 
What he means by Equality. — Honorable Sentiments. — Joint Resolution 
for disbanding Military Organizations. — Speech on the Resolution of Mr. 
Stevens against the Admission of Southern Representation. — The Nature of 
the Struggle. — Condition of Freedmen. — Mistake of the President. — Gen- 
Grant. — Legislative Labors. — Speech in Boston. — Natick. — Defection of 
the President. — Massachusetts. — Congress a Co-ordinate Branch of the 
Government. — Tour through the West. — Speech at Chicago. — Elective 
Franchise in the District of Columbia. — Corporal Punishment. — Buying 
and selling Votes. — Address on Religion. — Testimony of Statesmen to 
Christianity. — An Admonition. — Death of his Son. — Monument. — Ad- 
dress at Quincy. — Good Advice. — His Work on Military Legislation in 
Congress. — Its Character. 

WHEN, by the death of Mr. Lincoln, Andrew Jolinson 
came into the executive chair, the senators of our 
State had strong hopes that he would carry ont the policy of 
their party, and maintain the vantage-ground so nohly won 
by the untiring valor of the national army. The States 
lately in rebellion were now prostrate, their governments 
dissolved, and their military organizations demoralized and 



354 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

disbanded. The Union flao; was floating over tliem ; and 
the leaders were ready to acce])t snch terms of reconstruc- 
tion and restoration as the president and Congress might 
deem advisable. It was a golden opportunity for the 
friends of freedom. The power of re-organization was in 
their bands : but the work to be acconij)!ished was of no 
small magnitude ; and from the peculiar relations between 
the loyalists, the freedmen, and the confederates, it was as 
delicate as it was difficult and great. 

Forgetting that his piovince was to execute, not frame, 
the laws, and assuming that the power of reconstruction 
was in bis hands alone, the president began the work 
by what lie termed an " experiment ; " which, during the 
recess in Congress, became a settled governmental policy. 
By his unwarrantable course, he so revived the hopes of 
the disloyal States, thai on the opening of the Thirty-ninth 
Congress in December, 1865, a demand was made for 
the immediate admission of senators and representatives 
holding rebel sentiments from the disaffected States. This 
demand, encouraged by Mr. Johnson, the Republicans | er- 
sistently resisted ; and the struggle between the legislative 
and the executive branches of the government thence be- 
came intensely earnest, and so continued till tlie term of 
the experimenting president expired. 

In the reconstruction of the States, Mr. Wilson's counsel 
was for a generous yet decisive course of action. Let 
loyal men alone assume control ; let freedmen be protect- 
ed ; let the governments be constructed on the basis of 
equal rights for every citizen, and loyalty to the Union. 
He desired not to crush, but to elevate and fmprove, the 
Southern ])eo])ie ; asking only security for the future of 
the nation. Congress alone has the power to reconstruct 
the States; and, when so reconstructed, they may luive. 



REPLY TO ^m. COWAN. 855 

and not till tlien, a representation in this bofly. In sup- 
port (A his bill to maintain the freedom of the inliabitants of 
the States hitely in rebellion, he said in tiie Senate on the 
13th of December, 1865, " I liave never entertained a 
feeling of bitterness or of unkindiiess to the Southern peo- 
ple. Notwithstanding all that has taken place, I have 
always reparded those persons as my countrymen ; nor do I 
wish to impose upon the many things that would be degrad- 
ing or unmanly : but I wish to protect all the people there, 
of every race, the poorest and the humblest ; and, while 
I would not degrade any of them, neither would I allow 
them to degrade others. . . . To turn these freedmen over 
to the tender mercies of men who hate them for their fidel- 
ity to the country is a crime that will bring the judgment 
of Heaven upon us." 

Two days after the announcement that the States had 
ratified the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, 
Mr. Wilson introduced, Dec. 21, 1865, another bill, — " to 
maintain and enforce the freedom of the inliabitants of the 
United States;" which was nearly the same in substance as 
Mr. Trumbull's Civil-rights Bill, enacted over the veto 
of the president on the 9th of April, 1866. 

On the 22d of January, 1866, he made an eflpective 
speech in support of Mr. Trumbull's bill for the enlarge- 
ment of the Fieeclmen's Bureau, which was also vetoed by 
the president. Replying to Mr. Cowan, — a Republican in 
name, but Democrat in action, who had insolently demanded 
Avhat the honorable senator from Massachusetts meant in 
saying that "all men in this country must be equal," — 
he said, " Does he " (the senator from Pennsylvania) " not 
know that we mean that the poorest man, be he black or 
white, that treads the soil of this continent, is as much 
entitled to the protection of the luw as the richest and the 



356 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

proudest man in the land ? Does he not know that we 
mean that the poor man, whose wife may be dressed in 
cheap caHco, is as much entitled to have lier protected by 
equal law as is the rich man to have his jewelled bride 
protected by the laws of the land ? Does he not know 
that the poor man's cabin, though it may be the cabin of a 
poor freedman in the depths of the Carolinas, is entitled 
to the protection of the same law that protects the palace 
of a Stewart or an Astor? He knows that we have advo- 
cated the rights of the black man, because the black man 
was the most oppressed type of the toihng men of this 
country. The man who is the enemy of the black labor- 
ing-man is the enemy of the white laboring-man the world 
over. The same influences that go to crush down and 
keep down the rigiits of the poor black man bear down 
and oppress the poor white laboring-man. ... I tell the 
senator from Pennsylvania that I know we thall carry 
these measures. God is not dead, and we live ; and stand- 
ing upon the eternal principles of his justice, with a Chris- 
tian nation behind us, with God's commands ever ringing 
in our ears, we shall in the future, as we have in the twen- 
ty-five years of the past, march stiaight forward to battle 
and to victory over all opposition." «. 

Such sentiments the State which Mr. Wilson represents 
indorses. They accord with Solon's high conception of 
true liberty, — " A commonwealth where an injury to the 
meanest member is an injury to the whole." 

As some new military organizations in the insurrec- 
tionary States were commanded by veterans in the Rebel- 
lion, and refused to carry the Union flag, Mr. Wilson, on 
the 19th of February, 1866, introduced a joint resolution 
jiroviding that they should be forthwith disbanded, and 
such organizations prohibited in the future. This became 



SPEECH ON ME. STEVENS's RESOLUTION. 357 

a law, preventing that exhibition of disloyal purpose, and 
protecting peaceable citizens from abuse. 

On tiie resolution of Mr. Stevens against the admission 
of senators and representatives from any rebel State until 
Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such 
representation, he made, March 2, an eloquent speech, in 
which his views on many points of reconstruction are pre- 
sented. On the nature of the struggle he asserted that 

" A loyal people instinctively see, amid the turmoil and 
excitement of the present, that this is not a struggle for 
the re-admission of the rebel States into the Union, but a 
struggle for the admission of rebels into the legislative 
branches of the government ; not a struggle to put rebels 
under the laws of the country, but a struggle to enable 
rebels to frame the laws of the country. A loyal people 
see that the Confederate States, reconstructed since the 
surrender of the rebel armies, are as completely in the 
hands of rebels now as on the day Jeff. Davis was incar- 
cerated at Fortress Monroe." 

Of the condition of the freedmen under the new order 
of things he remarked, — 

" The poor freedmen, who a few months ago were leap- 
ing and laughing with the joy of new-found liberty, in- 
voking the blessings of Heaven upon the government that 
had stricken the galling manacles from their limbs, are 
now trembling with apprehension, everywhere subject to 
indignity, insult, outrage, and murder. During the past 
four months, in Alabama alone, fourteen hundred cases 
of assault upon freedmen have been brought before the 
Freedmen's Bureau. Thousands and tens of thousands 
of harmless black men, from the Potomac to the Rio 
Grande, have been wronged and outraged by violence, 
and hundreds upon hundreds have been murdered. The 



358 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

offices and the agencies of the Freedmen's Bureau, of the 
officers of our armies, and the office of Judge-Advocate 
Gen. Holt, are filled with the records of outrage and 
murder. The local authorities screen the murderers ; the 
people protest against the punishment of white men for 
the murder of black men ; and the murderers go unpun- 
ished." 

Of the great mistake of the president he said, — 
" Thoughtful men, anxious to heal the wounds of civil 
war, and bury in forgetfuiness the memories of old con- 
tests, were speaking for universal amnesty and universal' 
suffrage, for forgiving and restoring all. The nobler senti- 
ments of the libc;rt\'-loving men of the country at that 
time are caught and expressed in the verse of Whittier: — 

' From you alone the guaranty 

or union, i'reedum, peace, we claim : 
We urge no conquerer's terms of shame. 

Alas ! no victor's pride is ours, 

Who bend above our triumphs won 
Like David o'er his rebel son. 

Be men, not beggars ; cancel all 

By one brave, generous action ; trust 
Your better instincts, and be just. 

Make all men peers before the law ; 

Take hands from off the negro's throat ; 
Give black and white an equal vote. 

Keep all your forfeit lives and lands. 
But give the common law's redress 
To labor's utter nakedness.' 

" If the President of the United States had seized that 
golden moment, — that grand opportunity then vouchsafed 
by Providence to weapon the hand of the new-made free- 



SPEECH ON MR. STEVENS'S RESOLUTION. 359 

man with tlie ballot, — these sectional controversies would 
have perished forever; the representatives of the rebellious 
States would, ere this, have filled these vacant chairs; and 
the heavens would be raining their choicest blessings upon 
the nation for a deed so wise and so just. But the presi- 
dent, though frankly avowing himself in favor of qualified 
suff"rage, declined to asssume the responsibility which the 
condition of the country imposed upon him ; and the great 
opportunity God gave the nation to destroy caste, to clothe 
the emancipated race with power to guard their own lib- 
erties, rights, and interests without a struggle, passed by, 
perhaps forever. . . . 

" The loyal people of the United States, who have 
poured^ out so much blood and given so much treasure for 
its preservation, are in favor of fully protecting the people 
of the rebellious States, white and black, loyal and dis- 
loyal ; but they have the riglft to demand, and they 
should demand, before intrusting the legislation of the 
country to the framers and administrators of confederate 
governments, and to the soldiers who have met their 
sons on bloody battle-fields, ample security for the rights 
of loyal men of every race, and for the money loaned 
the country in its hour of need to arm, clothe, feed, equip, 
and pay the defenders of the republic." 

In the closing paragraph of this spirited speech he thus 
prophetically pointed to Gen. Grant as the next president. 
He said, — 

" Two years ago, in a trying hour of the country, we 
placed a great soldier at the head of all our armies ; and 
he led those armies to victory, and the country to peace. 
Perhaps a patriotic and liberty-loving people, if disap- 
pointed in their aspirations and their hopes, may again 
turn to that great captain, and summon him to marshal 
them to victory." 



360 LITE OF HENRY WILSON. 

In addition to various resolutions, reports, and private 
bills which he brought forward during the Tliirty-ninth 
Congress, Mr. Wilson spoke on the bills for the admission 
of Nebraska and Colorado, for wliich he voted ; also in ad- 
vocacy of the protection of the national cemeteries, of the 
establishment of a department of education, of the incorpo- 
ration of the orphans' home, of appropriations for soldiers' 
bounties, and for other important measures. He was never 
idle ; yet he often said, as in the war, that he was not ac- 
complishing what he would or could. 

Such is a brief outline of some of the legislative labors 
which Mr. Wilson performed in that series of Congressional 
measures which culminated in the suppression of the Rebel- 
lion and the liberation of the slave ; and which, for wisdom, 
efficiency, and humanity, will ever command the admira- 
tion of the world. Since that period Mr. Wilson has been 
steadily at his post in Coygress, battling for the rights of 
the freedmen and for restoration of tranquillity to the Union 
on tiie basis of the Declaration of Independence and the 
Constitution. The pages of " The Congressional Globe " 
bear ample witness to his unremitting industry, as well as 
to the practical views he entertained and the manly senti- 
ments he expressed upon the various questions which arose 
in Congress. 

His views of the policy of the president Mr. Wilson 
expressed in a large meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston, 
on the 6th of August. 

After alluding to what had been accomplished the last 
six years, he said we had yet work to do. Of the honor- 
able men who, in November, 1864, re-elected Abraham 
Lincoln president, and Andrew Johnson vice-president, 
ninety-nine out of a hundred were to-day bowing their 
heads in disappointment and sorrow. Tliis was because the 



SPEECH AT NATICK. 361 

vice-president, avIio became president by an act tliat needed 
not naming, lias disapi)ointed our expectations, turned his 
back upon the men who elected him, upon the principles 
he then professed, and is to-day the inspiration of wrong 
and outrage upon loyal white men and upon loyal black 
men South. 

In tiie same month, by an invitation signed by a hundred 
and fourteen of tiie citizens of Natick, he addressed the 
people of that town, who always throng the hall to hear 
him, upon the variance between the president and Congress; 
and urged his hearers in words of glowing eloquence to vote 
for the amendment to the Constitution, as essential to the 
liberties of the people and the rights of the unprotected 
freedmen. 

" After the surrender of Lee," he said, " the rebels were 
absolutely under the control of the military authorities of 
the government. They were then ready to accept any 
terms the nation chose to give. But to-day the rebels 
have possession of Virginia, of its government, of North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, Louisiana; and on Thursday next they will take 
possession of the government of Texas in the person of 
their rebel governor, Gen. Throckmorton. How came this 
so? Andrew Johnson, elected by the votes of loyal men 
who carried the country through the fire and blood of four 
years of war, has put these States in the hands of rebels. 

" And what have the legislatures elected under his pol- 
icy done ? That of Virginia inaugurated no State officers 
unless they were well-known rebels. North Carolina has 
elected a delegation to Congress, that, with one exception, 
are rebels. • South Carolina has elected a rebel delegation, 
and has a rebel governor, — one ot the leading men in 
establishing the confederacy. Georgia has elected Alexan- 



362 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. » 

der H. Stephens to the Senate of the United States, and 
an unbroken rebel delegation to the House. Florida has 
a rebel governor, one rebel and one loyal senator, whose 
term will expire on the 4th of next March ; and there is 
no prospect of his being re-elected. Mississippi and Ala- 
bama have sent to Congress men who cannot take the 
oath, . . . 

••' These States want admission into Congress ; and for 
what purpose? To take part in the government of the 
United States ; and not only to govern these States, but 
to direct and control the policy of the nation. And they 
present themselves with the declaration, that they acquiesce 
in their defeat because they cannot help it. They are not 
sorry for their revolt against the country, and that they 
murdered more than three hundred thousand men fighting 
to uphold the ohl flag. We should never consent to sur- 
render into rebel hands the government for which these 
loyal sohhcrs died." 

He closed by paying an eloquent tribute to the patriot- 
ism of Massachusetts. 

" He had no doubt that Massachusetts would be all right : 
she had always been. Among the first and foremost has 
she been for the rights of man, and in the bloody Kebeliion 
through which we have just passed. The bones of her 
sons lie upon many a battle-field ; her maimed heroes are 
here among us ; her brave men who have couie 'from 
battle-fields forever made immortal are here. I believe 
they will vote in the future as they have fought in the |)ast. 
I believe that the loyal men wh'o carried the country 
through the war will stand by this constitutional amend- 
ment, — stand by the action of Congress now, and eh ct 
one that will be true to them and that in 18G8. The unity 
ot the country will be assured, and the liberties of all races 
and conditions of men forever established in America." 



ADDRESS AT PHILADELPHIA. 363 

Senator Wilson spoke an hour and a half, and was fre- 
quently api^lauded. 

Adch-essing a vast assembly at Philadelphia, Sept. 4, — 
for we find him ever moving;, ever speaking, in defence of 
human rights, — he said he "could tell the president and 
his cabinet that Conn;ress was not a subordinate, but a 
co-ordinate branch of the government (cheers) ; that 
backed up by the country, as it had been, now was, and 
would be, it would speak for itself, and fix the time and 
conditions in which it w^ould admit the representatives of 
rebel constituencies to the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives. (Cheers.) It wanted the rebel States represented 
at the earliest possible moment, not by sueh men as had met 
here a few weeks ngo, but by such men as were in the city 
to-day (cheers), and who were true to the country and to 
Hberty." 

Referring to the assertion that the president was pursu- 
ing the policy of Mr. Lincoln, which Mr. Wilson pro- 
nounced as black a falsehood as ever fell from human lips, 
he said, "Abraham Lincoln sought to put the rebel States 
into the hands of loyal men ; but Andrew Johnson put 
them back into the hands of rebels ; and loyal men were 
under the hoof of those rebels as much now as when Jeffer- 
son Davis was President of the Southern Confederacy." 

In the autumn of this year Mr. Wilson made a tour 
through the. West, whece he met with most cordial 
receptions, and addressed many large and enthusiastic 
audiences in six Western cities on the questions then at 
issue. In this journey he travelled over three thousand 
miles, and in one instance spoke to a throng of about 
thirty thousand people. In his speech at Chicago on the 
twenty-eighth day of September, he said, — 

" You will remember that army alter army surrendered, 



364 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

and those composing eacli one liastened to tlieir homes ; 
that the rebels were hum i Hated, subjugated, conquered, 
and powerless at our feet, ready to accept any j)olicy the 
government chose to impose upon them. We all know 
that these conquered lebels in every portion of the country 
were ready and willing to accept at the hands of this gov- 
ernment just such a policy as the government believed 
the good of the country required. 

" You will remember how kind, humane, and generous 
our people were. We did not wish their lands, money, or 
blood ; but we desired security for the future. We wanted 
that the fruits of the war should be gathered : that was 
all. Our capitalists were ready to send their money there. 
Our young men were ready to go there and develop that 
portion of the country. Our noble women, who rushed to 
the hospitals and bound up the wounds of our soldiers, 
were ready to go there and instruct the darkened intellects 
of an emancipated race. All over the loyal States there 
was a desire, not to punish, to crush out, or to crush 
down, this people, but a desire to lift up and imj^rove that 
section of the country, and to demand only security for 
the future of the nation. 

" Now, this was the feeling in the spring of 1865 ; but 
what is the condition of that portion of the country now ? 
These men, then humble and penitent, and making ex- 
cuses for their actions, are now boasting of their deeds 
against the country, and are scornfully defiant. Why? 
Who is responsible? I say that Andrew Johnson alone 
is responsible for this change in the condition of affairs. 
Our brave soldiers struck the weapons from the rebel 
hands, and Andrew Johnson has restored them to them. 
Every one of the States which he has I'econstructed has 
passed into the hands of unrepentant rebels. The other 



SPEECH AT CHICAGO. 365 

day, nfter he had put the government of Texas into the 
liands of a rebel oeneral, he issued a proclamation deelar- 
iiio; tiiat peace had come. Order reigned in Warsaw 
then. Peace come, when the last great rebel State was 
put back again into the hands of the rebels! And tliese 
States are in i-ebel hands to-day. 

"■ The president demands the admission of their repre- 
sentatives into Congress. Now, only five of the men 
elected in those ten rebel States can take tiie oath of office. 
Five only ! The others are unrepentant traitors, though 
some of them are pardoned ones. Now, it is demanded 
that they shall be admitted into the Congress of the United 
States. They went out when it pleased them to go out: 
they shall come back when we please to let them back. 
They went out against our pleadings. We almost went 
ujion our knees and implored them to remain with us, to 
follow the old flag, and stand by the common country ; 
but they turned their backs upon us, and went out under- 
taking to establish a government. They said they would 
go out, and we said they should not. They fought to go 
out, and we fought to keep them in ; and, thanks be to 
God, they are to-night part and parcel of our common 
country, within the Union, and under the authority of the 
laws. The old flag is there waving over them. The boys 
in blue are there to maintain the authority of the govern- 
ment. They have to pay their taxes and obey the laws. 
They are subject to the authority of the nation. All there 
is abfjut it is this: their senators and representatives are 
not yet permitted to go into Congress and legislate for the 
country ; and we mean, when we have taken ample secu- 
rity for the future, to let them in, and not until we have 
taken it. 

" This body of men, ' calling itself a Congress,' that 

31* 



366 LIFE OP HENRY WILSON. 

Andrew Jolinson says ' is hanging on the verge of the gov- 
ernment,' — this body of men has framed a constitutional 
amen(hnent. We have submitted it to the people : and I 
tell you that this nation has resolved it ; it has proclaimed 
it ; it is recorded that that amendment shall be incorpo- 
rated into the Constitution of the country ,/and the repre- 
sentatives of these traitors shall sit no more in the Con- 
gress of the United States. If they want to be repre- 
sented, let them adopt that constitutional amendment ; let 
them choose men Avho believe in it, who are for it, and who 
will guard it ; let them choose men who Avill in the fu- 
ture be with their country and for their country, — men 
who give all they have, and all they hope to be, to tiie 
cause of unity and a free country, — a country that recog- 
nizes the equality of all men, and the equal privileges of 
all men ; and then the seats are ready for them in the 
Senate and House of Representatives, and not until that 
day. 

" You have recently had a visit from the chief magis- 
trate of the country. Let me say tiiat I think that chief 
magistrate has gone back to Washington a sadder, if not 
a wiser man. He believed that he could do what he 
started to do in May, 1865 ; ay, before Abraham Lincoln 
had been laid in his grave at Springfield : and that was, to 
build up a great personal party ; that he should be the 
founder of a great political party, as were Jeffei-son and 
Jackson. He has labored from May, 1865, until the pres- 
ent time, to create, build up, organize, and develop such 
a party in America ; and what is the result ? He has the 
who[e power and patronage of this government brought 
to bear. He has shaken in the face of the loval people 
of the land the vast |)atronage of the government. I told 
them in the Senate last winter, that a nation that had 



"THE POOR man's FRIEND." 367 

buried tlireo Imndred tliousaiid of its children to save the 
country was in no temper to be bought off by patron- 
age." 

The bill for extendino; the elective franchise to the freed- 
men of the District of Columbia received Mr. Wilson's 
cordial support during its tardy progress through the 
Senate. Speaking on one of the amendments to the bill, 
he thus declared (Dec. 13, 1866) his views on the right of 
suffrage : " Sir, I believe in the right of suffrage for my 
country. I believe in it far more for the poor, igno- 
rant man. I believe that he is more of a man when he 
has it, and that he will use it in the future as he has in the 
past, — generally for the elevation and the protection of the 
poor and lowly and dependent. No loyal man who has 
the right of suffrage shall ever have it taken away or 
abridged by me, unless for crime. No poor laboring-man 
shall ever accuse me before the bar of man or of God of 
voting against giving hiui the same right that I possess to 
go to the ballot-box." 

Ever espousing the cause of the oppressed, Mr. Wilson, 
in the Senate, on the 20th of December, 1866, introduced 
a joint resolution authorizing the president to prevent the 
infliction of corporal punishment in the States lately in 
rebellion. Its object was, especially, to defend the freed- 
men in their helplessness from a mode of punishment 
which he considered barbarous in its infliction, and de- 
grading in its tendencies. 

Surely such sentiments — and they are the rule of the 
heart and the lite — entitle the senator to his honored 
name of "the poor man's friend." 

An amendment by Mr. Wilson, making it unlawful to 
buy or sell votes, was incorporated in the bill, which, over 
liie veto of the president, became a law on tlie eighth day 



368 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of January, 1867; and was the first of tliose great meas- 
ures givinn; the elective franchise to the entire nation. 

Although upright and honorable in his dealings with liis 
fellow-men, consistent in his walk and conversation, a 
regular attendant on the services of the sanctuary, and a 
supporter of the institutions of religion, Mr. Wilson did 
not, until the autumn of 1866, avow himself a follower of 
the Saviour.* But, in a large assembly held in the Congre- 
gational church in Natick on the 28th of October, he de- 
clared in a very touching address, that, within a few past 
weeks, he had come to a knowledge of his own personal 
salvation through the merits of the Redeemer. All who 
knew him felt tiiat he would stand firmly to the position 
he had taken ; and many praj'ers ascended to the seat of 
mercy that the richest blessings of our heavenly Father 
might attend the future course of the beloved senator. 

On his return from Washington, he addressed, Dec. 23, 
the Young Men's Cliristian Association of Natick on " The 
Testimonies of American Statesmen and Jurists to the 
Truths of Christianity," which was afterwards published in 
a tract foi' general circulation. He said, — 

" God has given us existence in this Christian republic, 
founded by men who proclaim as their living faith, amid 
persecution and exile, ' We give ourselves to the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the word of his gi-ace, for the teaching, 
ruling, and sanctifying of us in matters of worship and 
conversation.' Privileged to live in this age, when the 
selectest influences of the religion of our fathers seem to 
be visibly descending upon our land, we too often hear the 
providence of God, the religion of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, the inspiration of Holy Writ, doubted, ques- 
tioned, denied. With an air of gracious condescension we 
are.sometlmes reminded that this religion of the crucified 



i 



KELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



369 



Redeemer may do for women, for children, for weak- 
minded men, but not for men of experience, observation, 
reflection. Men who see not God in our own history have 
surely lost si-ht of the fact, that, from the landing of ' The 
Mayflower' to this hour, the great men whose names 
are" indissolubly associated with the colonization, rise, and 
progress of tlie republic, have borne testimonies to the 
vital truths of Christianity. _ 

" These utterances, not of the great teachers of Chris- 
tianity, but of men of varied and large experience, ac- 
customed to the classification and comparison of fticts, the 
sifiincT and weighing of evidences, cannot pass unheeded 
by the young men of the land who cherish the.r names 
and revere their memories." 

After citincr the testimonies of the distinguished states- 
men of America to the truth and value of the Scriptures, 
he closed his beautiful address by these admonitory 

words : — . 

"Youncr men of this Christian association, remember, 
ever and always, that your country was founded, not by 
'the most superficial, the lightest, the most unreflective ot 
all the European races,' but by the stern old Puritans who 
made the deck of ' The Mayflower ' an altar of the living 
God, and whose first act, on touchiug the soil of the New 
World, was to off-er on bended knees thanksgiving and 
prayer to Almighty God. Remember, too, that the great 
men of your country - Washington Franklin Jefferson 
the Adamses, Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, Kent Webster and 
their illustrious compeers -possessed the intellectual force 
and severity necessary to carry far and long the greatest 
conception of the human understanding, the idea ot God. 
Never forgetting the religious character of our nationa 
•in and the humble and pious recognition ot the hand 



oriiiin. 



370 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

of God in ouraffliirs by the immortal statesmen and jurists 
Avho moulded and fashioned the institutions of our country, 
we will continue to indulge the hope that it shall never be 
said of any considerable portion of our countrymen, by 
poet, philosopher, or statesman, of our country, that their 
minds are too superficial, too light, too unreflective, to con- 
ceive ' the profoundest and weightiest idea of which the 
human intelligence is capable.' " 

A few days afterwards, the sad intelligence of tiie death 
of his only son, L eut.-Col. Henry Hamilton Wilson, which 
occurred in Austin, Tex., on Dec. 24, came to fill his home 
with sorrow, which nothing but an abiding trust in Him 
" who doeth all things well " was able to assuage. The 
remains of tiiis brave young soldier were brought home, 
and with many tears consigned to their final resting-place 
in Dell-park Cemetery, where a marble monument has 
been raised over them, bearing this inscription. On the 
front, — 

" LiEUT.-CoL. Hexry Hamilton Wilson. 
Boru in Natick, Nov. 11, ISiG ; died at Austin, Tex., Dcic. 21, 18G6. 

Army of the Potomac." 
On the reverse, — 

" He tlie young and strong, who cherished 
Noble longings for the strife. 
By the roadside fell and perished, 
Weary with the march of life. 

Department of the South. 
Department of the Gulf." 

Adth'essing a Christian convention at Quincy soon after 
liis bereaveiuent, he gave some account ut the Congres- 
sional [)rayer-uieetiug, an I then said, "• In military life il 



DUTY OF CHRISTIANS. 371 

is the duty of the soUUer to l)e on the alert at all times, 
and always to be present at the roll-call : so should Chris- 
tians always be present at prayer-meetings. It is said that 
prayer-meetings are sometimes dull ; but, if all Christians 
attend who can, they never will be dull. With the room 
well filled, and all engaged in one cause, there will be no 
lack of interest. 

" Christians should act from principle and deep con- 
viction. They should forsake all that tempts others away 
from duty, should abandon all that will leads others astray. 
If a glass of wine leads the young to stumble. Christians 
should throw it away. If going to theatres leads others to 
wrong. Christians should keep away from theatres. If a 
Christian feels that his staying away from prayer-meeting 
causes others to stay away, then he should go, even if he 
only expected to meet his God there. Nothing but sick- 
ness should keep a man from the sabbath-meeting ; and all 
should go to the prayer-meeting who could. 

"Clu-istians should not neglect tiieir duty because they 
are depressed in spirit: they should always be up and doing. 
They should always act from principle, and always do 
right. He said he looked to the young men as the hope 
of the country ; and they should catch the spirit of the 
age, a>nd carry it forward. They should act now as they 
did in the war. The gigantic evil which had overspread 
the South had been overcome ; and now that region is a 
missionary field for Christian young men. The next 
thirty years has a mortgage on the efforts of every Chris- 
tian young man and woman. 

" Altliough that gigantic evil had been overcome, here 
in iMassacliusetts there was a greater evil than slavery had 
ever been : that was intemperance. 

"• The church wants the sauie- earnestness that the cuun- 



372 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

try carried into the war ; wants men and money to enroll 
in the ranks, and be ever ready to res[)ond to the call, 
morning, noon, or night." Alluding to the death of his 
son, an only child, who had been brought home a corpse 
from Texas, he said, with much feeling, that he would give 
his life to-day if he had been able to say to his dear boy 
what he was now able to say to young men ; and he begged 
of them, as they loved their parents, as they loved their 
country, to love their Saviour also. They knew not when 
they might be brought back to their friends as his son had 
been. In conclusion, he urged, that no matter what base 
motives might be charged, no matter what might be said, 
all should do their duty, and serve their Master, and in 
life and death have the proud consciousness of having 
done right. 

In 18G6 Mr. Wilson found time to enrich the legislative 
history of his country by the publication of a very valuable 
work, under the title of "jMilitary Measures of the United- 
States Congress, 1861-1865. By Henry Wilson, Chair- 
man of the Committee on Military AflPairs." It is printed 
in double columns royal octavo, contains eighty-eight pages, 
and forms a part of Frank Moore's " Rebellion Recoi-d." 
It presents a clear and connected view of the coui-se and 
character of Congressional legislation in respect to the 
calling-forth and organization of the grand army of the 
republic. It is a record of what our patriotic Congress- 
men accomplished, in a military point of view, for the salva- 
tion of the State, when imperilled by the most tremendous 
conflict ever known. The heart ot the nation was on fire ; 
the actors were in earnest ; most momentous interests were 
at stake ; vast plans and movements were inaugurated ; 
gigantic blows were struck, and hundreds of thousands 
bravely fell. The organizing and constructing power was 



MILITARY MEASURES IN CONGRESS. 373 

Conrrress : hence the history of its herculean labors through 
that memorable period will ever commanil the attention of 
the world ; and it is fortunate that one who shared those 
labors, and who knew their magnitude, was led to make of 
them such an impartial, vivid, and distinct record. The 
work is worthy of the subject and the man. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

REPLY TO MR. NYE. CONGRESSIONAL TEMPERANCE 

SOCIETY. WELCOME TO BOSTON. SOUTHERN TOUR. 

CONVENTION AT WORCESTER. SPEECH AT 

MARLBOROUGH. BANGOR. FANEUIL 

HALL. WORKING-MEN. HISTORY OF 

THE RECONSTRUCTION MEASURES 
IN CONGRESS. 

Peonage. — Whipping. — Colored Persons in the Militia. — Bill to facilitate Resto- 
ration. — Speech thereon. — Feelings toward the Rebels. — Temperance in 
Congress. — Hon. Richard Yates. — Reception at Tremont Temple. — Re- 
marks of W. B. Spooner. — Mr. Wilson's Address. — Mr. Yates's. — Liquors 
banished from the Capitol. — Enforcement of the Law. — Visit to the South. 
— At Richmond, Va. — Petersburg. — Animosity of Goldsborough, N.C. — 
Reception at Wilmington. — Mr. Robinson. — At Charleston, May 2. — New 
Orleans. — Gen. Longstreet's Opinion. — Declines going to Europe. — Bill 
vacating Offices. — Appointing Civilians incorporated in Mr. Trumbull's 
Bill. — Remarks on its Passage. — President of Convention at Worcester. — 
Speech. — Gen. Sheridan. — Hopeful View of the Republic. — Speech at 
Marlborough. — Effects of Intemperance. — Who are Weak? — Strong 
Appeal. — Speech at Bangor. — Gen. Grant. — Speech in Faneuil Hall. — 
Friend of Working-Men. — Reconstruction Measures. — Style and Subject 
Matter. — A Wedding. 

THE system of peonage, or servitude, for debt, was 
ill force in the Territory of New Mexico, and 
about two thousand persons wei*e held in thralch)ni. Mr. 
Wilson saw that it was inconsistent with the spirit of our 
HLieral mstitiuions, and tiiei-efore introtUiced u l)iil on the 

374 



REPLY TO MR. NYE. 375 

tweiity-sixdi day of January, 18G7, for its abolition, which, 
on the 2J of the following Marcli, became a law ; and 
thus was the last vestige of human servitude in this land 
obliterated. 

On the twelfth day of February, 1867, he reported two 
bills in the Senate, — one of which, in its eleventh section, 
prohibited whipping in the reconstructed States ; and the 
other, that the word " white " should be stricken from the 
militia-laws, so that colored persons might become a part 
of the militia of the United States. 

In order to carry into effect the measures of reconsti uc- 
tion already passed, Mr. Wilson, on the 7th of March, 1867, 
introduced an important bill supplementary to the act pro- 
viding for " the more efficient government of the rebel 
States, and to facilitate restoration ; " which, after long dis- 
cussion in both Houses, became a law over the veto of the 
president on the twenty-third day of tlie same month. In 
a sharp encounter during tlie progress of this bill with 
Mr. Nye of Nevada, who was very severe in denouncing 
the rebels, and thought Mr. Wilson was extending his 
Christian charity too far towards them, he thus, in the 
s})irit of wise and liberal statesmanship, replied : — 

"■I remind that senator in the outset that this nation 
has been engaged in a mighty contest of ideas, a bloody 
struggle, in which all the passions of this people, South 
and North, have been aroused. That bloody struo-gle 
is ended ; that contest of ideas is closed. Patriotism, hu- 
manity, and Christianity bid us of the North and of the 
South subdue, hush, and calm the passions enoendered by 
the terrific conflicts tlirough which we have passed, and to 
call the dews of blessing, not the bolts of cursing, tlown 
u])on each other. We should reineinber the wurds of one 
of our own poets of freedom and humanity : — 



376 LIFE OF HENF.Y WILSON. 

' Always he who most forgiveth 
In his brother is most just.' 

" Whatever the cliampions of the lost cause in the South 
may do, we of the North, whose cause is triumphant in the 
fiehls of war and of peace, should appeal, not to the passions 
and prejudices and hatreds of the people, but to the heart 
and conscience and reason. Unreasoning passion may- 
applaud violent appeals to-day ; but unclouded reason will 
utter its voice of condemnation to-morrow. 

" Tlie honorable senator from Nevada is pleased to tell 
me that I am anxious to welcome rebels here. I do not 
propose to welcome rebels here ; but I do desire to wel- 
come tried and true men of the South, the representatives 
of the seven hundred thousand enfranchised black men, 
the ever-loyal white men of the South, and the men com- 
promised by the Rebellion, whose affections are again given 
to their native land, and who would now peril their lives 
for the unity of the republic and the triumph of the old 
flag. I believe that the enfranchised black men of the 
rebel States, the men who have ever been loyal, and the 
men reluctantly compromised by the Rebellion, who are for 
their country, and many fiery, generous, deluded young 
men of the South, who have seen their political illusions 
vanish in the smoke of lost battle-fields, can immediately 
take the direction and control of these rebel States. 1 be- 
lieve these States must pass into the hands of patriotic men, 
who comprehend in their affections the whole country ; of 
liberty-loving men, who believe in the sublime creed of 
human equality. I believe these States will soon pass into 
the hands of radical and progressive men who are true to 
country, true to the equal rights of man, true to the laws 
of human development and progress. I would facilitate 
that great work : I would welcome these men into these 



REPLY TO MR. NYE. 377 

chambers with heart and hand. Does the senator from 
Nevada wish to keep such men out of tiiese chambers ? . . . 
The honorable senator from Nevada, and tliose who agree 
witli him, fear our enemies, and distrust our friends. 1 do 
not fear our enemies, and I have confidence in our friends. 
Tliis is the difference between the honorable senator from 
Nevada and myself. 

" The honorable senator from Nevada deems it matter 
of re|)roach, now the bloody contest is over, the rebels 
beaten, and their cause lost forever, that I should not enter- 
tain and express toward my defeated and fallen countrymen 
of the South the same stern condemnation, the same senti- 
ments of censure and reproach. Tliey are not alien ene- 
mies ; they are not of anotiier lineage and language : they 
are our countrymen. These States must continue for ages 
to come to be a part of our common country ; and these 
people, their children, and their children's chiklren, must 
continue to be our countrymen. I do not consider it either 
generous, manly, or Christian, to nourish or cherish or ex- 
press feelings of wrath or hatred toward them. At this 
time, when these misguided and mistaken countrymen of 
ours have been conquered, "vvhen we have absolutely estab- 
lished our ideas, which must pervade and be incorporated 
into their system of public policy, it seems to me to be a 
duty sanctioned by humanity and religion to heal tlie 
wounds of war. Sii% I have fought the battle for the coun- 
try, I have fought this battle for the equal rights of man, 
not to pull down anybody, nor to be the personal enemy of 
anybody 6n earth. That is my position now, and it will 
be ray position hereafter. Our words should not rekindle 
the prejudices, passions, and hatreds engendered bv the 
bloody struggles of civil war; but our words should be fitted 
33* 



878 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

to the changed condition of affairs and the needs of our 
country." 

Anxious to save some of his associates at Washington 
from the baleful influence of strong drink, Mr. Wilson, 
early this year (1867), instituted the Congressional Tem- 
perance Society, of which he was chosen j)resident. At 
the first meeting tlie hall of the House of Representatives 
was densely crowded, many standing in the aisles and at 
the doors. On taking the chair, Mr. Wilson said, — 

" Several senators and representatives, mindful of the 
numerous evils and sorrows of intemperance, had formed 
a society, in which they had pledged each to the other, 
and all to the country, to put away from them forever 
the intoxicating cup, and to commit themselves and 
all they have to the holy cause of temperance. They 
humbly trusted in the providence of Almighty God that 
they might contribute to arrest the evils of intemperance 
which were sweeping over our land," 

Among those who spoke was Senator Yates of Illinois, 
who had been, like many others, reclaimed by the kind 
efforts and example of the president of the society. His 
remarks were veiy touching, 'and were listened to with 
sincere delight. A noble man had come to his right mind. 
He ascribed his taking the pledge to Mr. Wilson, who came 
to him " in the kindness and goodness of his big heart," and 
said to him, " Governor, I want you to sign a call for a 
temperance meeting." He replied, " With all ray heart," 
but did not wait for the meeting before he signed the 
pledge. He had now " promised the State, aSd all who 
loved him, Katy, and the children, that he would never 
more toucli, taste, or handle, the unclean thing." 

For his eloquent words and earnest efforts on behalf of 
temperance at Washington the citizens of Boston tendered 



"WELCOME TO BOSTON. 379 

Mr. Wilson a public reception, on the fifteentli day of April, 
at the Tremont Temple. The biiilJino; was crowded, and 
the utmost enthusiasm prevailed. On taking the chair, 
the president (William B. Si)Ooner), said, — 

" You have been invited to come here this evening to 
give a cordial welcome to Mr. Wilson, and to receive words 
of encouragement and wisdom from one who has always 
been true to this subject, to this cause, as he has always 
been true to the cause of the weak, suffering, and down- 
trodden, on all occasions. (Applause.) 

" He has never forborne to speak his mind on this sub- 
ject, whenever occasion called ; he has never failed, in low 
])laces or in high places, wherever he has been, to give his 
example in favor ot temperance. 1 have known him thirty- 
years. When quite a young man, I used then to be with 
him in the temperance movement. He was always ready, 
antl did not stop to ask whether the cause were popular. He 
asked whether it were right (applause). He asked, ' Can I 
do any good? Can my example, my word, in favor of the 
cause, benefit my fellow-man ? ' Tliat it has doue good is 
manifest. His example is one which in this State, if a man 
wishes for promotion, he had better follow ; that is, do 
whatever is right under all circumstances. (Applause.) He 
asked only the questions, ' Is it right ? Can I do any good ? ' 
His recent efforts at the capital of the country in forming 
a total-abstinence society among the members of Congress 
and the other officers of the government have turned the 
attention of his state and of the country anew to him as 
an atlvocate of temperance." Mr. Wilson was introduced 
amid the most enthusiastic applause, and then made an 
address of remarkable force and fervor. In the course of 
his speech, he said, — 

" You have made mention to-nighf, sir, of the orgauiza- 



380 LIFE OF HENP.Y WILSON. 

tion of the Confrressional Temperance Society. Sir, I 
claim im honor for that. At the hist session of Congress 
we orjjanized a Conjrressional Temperance Society, com- 
posed of some of our ablest, truest, and best men ; and I 
thank God to-ni«j;ht that it lives in the strencrth of its pur- 
pose and its power. (Applause.) Judcring from the 
words that come to us from all parts of the country, it has 
contributed something to advance the holy cause of tem- 
perance throughout the land. I say to you to-night, what I 
believe to be true, that there is no city of the Union where 
there are, in proi)ortion to the numbers, more true, earnest, 
and devotetl tempei'ance men than in the city of Washing- 
ton. (Applause.) There are more than six thousand 
members of temperance organizations in that city (ap- 
plause) ; and such men as Gen. Howard (applause), one 
of our noblest, bravest, and best, are giving their influence 
to advance the cause. More than seven hundred liquor- 
shops have been closed in that city, not by law, but starved 
out by the people ; and there are hundreds of other shops 
that are eking out a precarious existence. . . . 

" The prairies of Illinois are all aflame in favor of the 
cause, following in the grand movement their loved and 
honored senator, Richard Yates. (Applause.) He has 
been one of the victims of the curse of intemperance. 
Every man and woman and child in his State knew it. 
Last winter he came to me, or rather I went to him, 
and asked him if he would sign a call for a temperance 
meeting to organize a Congressional society ; and he said 
he would do it with all his heArt. Before I could get up 
the meeting, he became earnest in the matter, and com- 
mitted himself to the cause ; and, by the blessing of 
Almighty God, I believe he will stand to it. He goes 
home in a few days, and will be welcomed at Chicago as 



LIQUOR BiVNISHED FROM THE CAPITOL. 381 

you welcome me liere to-nio;lit. (Applause.) His influ- 
ence will tell witli ])owerful effect in that State, where he is 
honored and loved for his devotion to his country, to 
freedom, and for his generous personal qualities. 

" Two years ago, after the humiliating scene of the 
inauguration, I secured the passage of a resolution in the 
Senate, forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquors in 
the Capitol. In spite of that resolution, liquors were 
brought into the committee-rooms and into other places. 
Again I introduced the subject of banishing liquors from 
the Capitol ; and Congress adopted a joint rule forbidding 
the sale, and empowering the sergeants-at-arms of the 
two Houses to keep all kinds of liquors out of the Capitol 
of the nation. (Ajiplause.) No more can intoxicating 
liquors be brought into, sold, or given away in, that mag- 
nificent edifice. This banishment of liquors has been fol- 
lowed by the adoption of a rule requirin;]; the members of 
the Capitol-police to sign the total-abstinence pledge ; and 
they all have done it (applause), and more than four- 
fifths of the Senate employes have signed the pledge." 
(A|)plause.) 

He closed his grand address by saying, — 

" I thank you, ladies and gentleman, for this generous 
welcome and these applauding voices ; I thank you, Mr. 
Chairman, for your words of kindness and approval: and 
I close with the expression of the hope that the hallowed 
cause of temperance will be advanced in the state and 
nation. In this hour of trial let us invoke upon it the 
blessing of Almighty God, and the prayers of all whose 
hearts thi-ob in sympathy with tempted and struggling 
humanity." (Prolonged applause.) 

In order to examine the condition of the South, encour- 
age the colored people, and defend the policy of his party. 



382 LITE or HENRY WILSON. 

Mr. Wilson made, in the spring of 1867, a tour tlirouo;li 
the Southern States. At Richmond, Va., he addressed 
some six thousand people from the steps of the Capitol. 
He was introduced to them by Gov. Pierpont, and assured 
his hearers that the Reconstruction Bill had in view the 
hio;hest good of the whole country, and advised all classes 
to unite on the basis of the Republican party. " The 
Richmond Times " announced him as " a Puritan radical 
under the shadow of the monument of the great Virginia 
rebel." 

At Petersburg, April 4, he spoke as openly as he 
would have done on Bunker Hill. The mayor presided 
at the meeting, which numbered several thousands. In 
respect to the war, he said, — 

" It had to come ; it was unavoidable. It came, and we 
fought it out; and, when the last gun was fired, I was in 
favor of forgetting all the bitterness engendered by the 
contest, and of marching with you shoulder to shoulder 
in favor of a united country. . . . There was only one 
cause of the war, — human slavery in America." To the 
colored people he said, " Go for the schoolhouse and the 
church. Get homes and lands, however humble they 
may be. Touch not the bowl whose contents degrade 
humanity." 

At Goldsborough, N.C.,the white people manifested signs 
of animosity ; and one rebel declared that he should like 
to put a^ bullet through his head. He spoke, however, 
with fearlessness, and no violence was attempted. 

At Wilmington, N.C., which he reached on the first 
day of May, he met with an enthusiastic reception. The 
public buildings were decorated with the national flag, 
streamers, &c. ; and mottoes were suspended across the 
streets in many places. A procession of the colored 



SOUTHERN TOUR. 383 

men was formed with music, and marched to Dudley's 
Grov'e, a short distance from tlie city, where a public 
meeting was held. Among the mottoes noticed upon tiie 
banners borne in the procession was the following; 
" Equal rights before the law : we will ask no more ; we 
will take no less." 

Gen. Estes was president of the meeting. Resolutions 
were adopted, thanking Congress for passing the Military 
Reconstruction Bill ; promising to reconstruct North 
Carolina with loyal men ; to give colored men the right 
to sit on juries ; and to secure rights and privileges for 
the poor white men by establishing a Republican party 
in the State. 

Mr. Wilson spoke about two hours. He declared that 
the Republican party was not responsible for one life lost 
in the war ; but, before God and history, the supporters 
of slavery were responsible for every life sacrificed and 
every dollar spent in it. He invited the colored people 
to vote with the Republican party, declaring it vitally 
important that there should be no black party or white 
party formed. 

In reply to Mr. Robinson, editor of " The Despatch," 
who endeavored to throw the responsibility of the war 
upon antislavery agitators, Mr. Wilson 'declared that the 
abolition of slavery by the General Government was the 
result of the Rebellion. He congratulated Mr. Robinson 
upon the change already effected in his views by his 
willingness to have the colored people educated ; and 
tliought, that, in a few months more, Mr. Robinson would 
be fully affiliated with the Republican party. 

As to colored men not holding commissions in the 
colored army, he declared that his own son, who died 
recently, served as a lieutenant, captain, and lieutenant- 



38J: LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

colonel ill a regiment whose major was as black as any 
man in the audience. 

He arrived at Charleston, S.C, on the second day of 
May, where he was cordially received by many distin- 
guished citizens. He addressed a vast audience on Cita- 
del Green, and was serenaded in the evening. He visited 
and addressed the citizens of Savannah and Augusta, 
Ga., Montgomery, Ala. (May 11), and New Orleans ; and, 
although he was sharply questioned by the disloyal men, 
he was, in general, heard with attention, and treated with 
courtesy and respect. In a letter dated New Orleans, 
June 3, 1867, Gen. James Longstreet said of him, " I 
was much pleased to have the opportunity to hear 
Senator Wilson, and was agreeably surprised to meet 
such fairness and frankness in a politician whom I have 
been taught to believe uncompromisingly opposed to the 
white people of the South." 

Mr. Wilson's impressions of the South were favorable ; 
and, on arriving home, he spoke hopefully of the future 
prospects of the Southern people. 

His friend Mr. Pierce had invited him to embark for 
Europe on the nineteenth day of June ; but the con- 
tinued illness of Mrs. Wilson led him to postpone his 
foreign tour. 

Still distrusting the policy of the president. Congress, 
after taking a recess, assembled on the third day of July, 
1867 ; when Mr. Wilson introduced a bill vacating the 
offices held under the pretended State governments, and 
for other purposes, which was not carried. His amend- 
ment authorizing district commanders to appoint civil- 
ians to perform the duties of persons removed from 
office was, however, incorporated in Mr. Trumbuirs bill, 
which became a law over the veto of Mr. Johnson on the 



CONVENTION AT WORCESTER. 38') 

19tli of July, 1867. " The passage of the bill," said 
Mr. Wilson, " would complete the work of restoration. 
I rise now," continued he, " to express the hope, that, 
throughout that part of our country, men of all parties 
and of all sentiments and feelings will clearly under- 
stand, that, if they comply with the terms and conditions 
of these three reconstruction laws honestly and faith- 
fully, all obstacles will be removed, and they will be 
admitted into these chambers." 

On the 11th of September Mr. Wilson was chosen 
president of the Republican Convention at Worcester, 
and, on taking the chair, presented his views of the con- 
ditiqn of the country in an earnest and felicitous speech, 
during which he paid the following compliment to the 
gallant Gen. Sheridan : — 

'• Not appeased by striking down the great v^'^ar 
secretary, Andrew Johnson has laid his hand of violence 
on that brilliant, honored, and loved soldier, Philip H. 
Sheridan, whose record hi the field glitters witli glorious 
achievements, whose record in the fifth military district 
is instinct with patriotism and justice. This brilliant 
hero of the Valley of the Shenandoah, and of battle- 
fields made immortal by his genius and valor, is sent 
from his department, hurried away to the distant plains, 
to the gorges of the Rotiky Mountains, to chase the wild 
Indian, with an admonition that his energies will there 
find a fitting field for action. Time, it is said, brings 
about its revenges. Perhaps it may so happen that an 
outraged nation, that is master of presidents, congresses, 
and generals, may bid this man — drunk at least with 
unreasoning passion — descend from that lofty position 
from which he smites down her honored statesman and 
her brilliant general, and go back to tliat lam.. us 'IVn- 

33 



386 LIFE OF HENRY WILSOIST. 

nessee village, where his abilities will find an appro- 
priate sphere of action in filling once again the office of 
village alderman. It is not given to men of the capacity 
or character of Andrew Johnson, however lifted up to 
exalted positions, to belittle Edwin M. Stanton or Philip 
H. Sheridan. The illustrious commander of our army, 
who is now enduring the burden imposed by patriotism, 
as did his predecessor through weary months, uttered the 
voice of loyal America when he expressed his apprecia- 
tion of the ' zeal, patriotism, firmness, and ability ' with 
which Edwin M. Stanton had discharged the duties of 
secretary of war. I remember, too, — for I could not for- 
get it, — the generous tribute the same great commander 
paid a few weeks ago to the genius of Sheridan. ' The 
people,' he said, ' do not fully appreciate Slieridan. I 
think him the greatest soldier the war developed. Were 
we to have a great war, and to call out a million of men, 
I think Sheridan the best fitted to command them. 
Some persons say I have done a great deal for him ; but 
I never did any thing for him : he has done much for 
me.' Such is the statesman and such is the general 
Andrew Johnson has thrust from posts of duty, and 
striven to disgrace." 

He closed by this hopeful view of the republic : — 
"If the Republicans of Massachusetts and of other 
States subordinate minor issues, personal ambitions and 
interests, and rise to the full comprehension of the high 
duties now imposed upon them, the complete unity of 
the country, and the perfect equality of the rights of the 
people, will speedily come. Then the republic, redeemed 
and purified, the people free to run the race and win the 
glittering prizes of life, will daily illustrate the power 
and beauty of free institutions. Then the people of the 



SPEECH AT MAELBOROUGH. 387 

North and the people of the South will vie with each 
other ill fidelity to the country, and devotion to liberty. 
Then the bitter memories of the stern conflicts of civil 
war will fade away in the prosperity and renown of the 
great republic. Then the sons of patriots and the sous 
of rebels, whose fathers fought and fell on bloody fields, 
will glory in the name and fame of their common coun- 
try, and cherish, honor, and love their countrymen. 
Inspired by these lofty purposes, animated by these 
exalted hopes, wo, the Republicans of old Massachusetts, 
here and now call the battle-roll anew, and move for- 
ward to the conflicts of the future with the light of 
victory on our faces." 

Though detained at home considerably this season to 
watch at the bedside of his sick wife, Mr. Wilson made 
many public speeches on behalf of temperance in various 
towns and cities of this State. In a grand address at 
Marlborough in November, he said, — 

" I was born in a section of the country where New- 
England rum was used at births and at funerals; used to 
keep out the heat of summer and the cold of winter ; 
sold openly at the cross-road groceries, where too many 
of the companions of my boyhood were wont to assemble, 
instead of going to lyceums and associations for mental 
and moral improvement, and spend their evenings in 
drinking poor rum. I have seen the effects of the use 
of intoxicating liquors on the farm, in the workshop, and 
in the halls of legislation, I have found that in the 
field in the heats of summer, in the forests in winter, in 
the mechanic's shop, in our own State legislature, in 
tlie Congress of the United States, everywhere, the 
men who use intoxicating drinks are the first to fail in 
the performance of duty. During fourteen sessions in 



o88 LITE OF HENRY WTISON. 

the Senate of the United States I have witnessed many- 
severe contests, lasting through the hours of the night 
until daylight streamed into the windows ; and I have 
always found that the men who resorted to intoxicating 
liquids for strength found weakness, — were always the 
first to retire to their rooms or their homes." 

During the summer and autumn of 1838, Mr, Wilson 
Iicartily advocated the election of Gen. Grant and the 
itourse of the Republican party. On the 2Tth of August 
he spoke to a vast throng in Bangor, Me., on what the 
Republica)! and Democratic parties have done, and what 
they propose to do. Referring to what the former organi- 
zation had accomplished, he said, — 

" It was said of Wilberforce that he went to God with 
the shackles of eight hundred thousand West-India 
slaves in his hands. The Republican party enters the 
forum of the nations with four million and a half of 
riven fetters in one hand, and four million and a half of 
title-deeds of American citizenship in the other. Tliese 
broken fetters, these title-deeds, it hold^ up to the gnze 
of the living present and the advancing future. In the 
progress of the ages, it has been given to few generations, 
in any form or by any modes, to achieve a work so vast, 
so grand, so sure to be recorded by the historic pen, or 
flung upon the canvas in enduring colors. Defeat and 
disaster may come upon the Republican party ; it may 
perish utterly from the land it saved and made free: 
but its name will be forever associated with the emanci- 
pation of millions of a poor, friendless, and hated raee, 
their elevation to the heights of citizenship, their exalta- 
tion to equality of civil rights and privileges, and, crown- 
ing act of all, the prerogative ' to vote and to be voted 
for.' These beneficent deeds will live in the hearts of 



SPEECH AT BANGOR. 089 

coming generations, and ' brighter glow and gleam im- 
mortal, unconsumed by moth or rust.' " 

Speaking of the coming contest, he said, — and his 
prediction time and events have verified, — 

" In November there is to be another struggle between 
these two parties for the control of the national adminis- 
tration. The Republican party met at Chicago, re- 
affirmed its policy of reconstruction, pronounced against 
all forms of repudiation, for the reduction and equaliza- 
tion of 'taxation, for the equal protection of American 
citizens, for the recognized obligations to our soldiers 
and to the widows and orphans of the gallant dead, and 
for the removal of restrictions imposed upon rebels as 
rapidly as the safety of the loyal people will admit. The 
convention than presented the name of Gen. Grant, 
the great captain who has so often marshalled our 
armies to victory ; and Schuyler Colfax, a statesman of 
pure life, stainless honor, and commanding influence. 
If success crowns its efforts, if the administration shall 
be intrusted to Gen. Grant, with a House of Repre- 
sentation to sustain that administration, the policy of 
reconstruction will be perfected, the States will all be 
speedily restored to their practical relations to the Gen- 
eral Government, equal rights will be assured and dis- 
abilities removed, the nation's faith will be untarnished, 
its currency and credit improved, and ' Peace,' in the 
language of Mr. Lincoln, ' will come to stay.' Then the 
blood poured out like autumnal rains will not have been 
shed in vain ; for then united and free America, with 
liberty for all and justice to all, will enter upon a career 
of development, culture, and progress, tbat shall insure a 
' future grand and great.' " 

His speech in Faneuil H;ill on tiie 14th of October most 



390 LIFE OF ilENIlY WILSON. 

clearly exhibits him as an earnest, stroiio;, and sensible 
defender ot the interests of the workintr-people. He stands 
upon the side, as he has ever done, ot those who bear the 
heat and bnrden of the day. He said, — 

" To provide for the expenses of that Democratic re- 
bellion, the Republican party were compelled to take the 
responsibility of arranging a system of taxation ; and they 
so adjusted that taxation. as to make the burden bear as 
lightly as possible on the productive interests ot the coun- 
try and upon the working-men of the country.* More 
than one-half of the duties levied on imports are assessed 
on wines, brandies, silks, velvets, laces, and other articles 
of luxury, chiefly consumed by the more wealthy portion 
of our countrymen. The dnties imposed on the neces- 
saries of life — upon tea, coffee, sugar, and other articles 
entering into the consumption of the masses of the people 
— are made as low as possible ; and discrimination is made 
in favor of our mechanical and manufacturing industry. 

" The Republican party spurns this Democratic doc- 
trine of taxing every species of property according to its 
value. It believes in discriminating in favor of poor, 
toiling men, and of putting the burden of taxation on 
accumulated capital and large incomes. In time of war, 
when the nation needed money so much, the Republi- 
cans exempted nineteen out of every twenty dollars of 
the incomes of the people. This was done to relieve the 
working-men, whose small incomes were required for the 
support of their families and the education of their chil- 
dren. We exempted all incomes under six hundred 
dollars ; and this exemption included the incomes of 
nearly all the laboring-men, mechanics, and small farm- 
ers, of the country. We taxed all incomes from six 
hundred to five thousand dollars five per cent, and all 



SPEECH IN FANSUIL HALL. 391 

incomes over five thousand dollars ten per cent. That 
was not equal taxation : but it was just taxation ; for 
it was based on the sound policy of putting the burden 
upon capital, and taking the burden from labor. Now 
we have taken the tax from all incomes less than a 
thousand dollars, and we tax all incomes above a thou- 
sand dollars five per cent, thus relieving the working- 
men and nearly all the mechanics and farmers from 
taxation on incomes. We Republicans intend to stand 
or fall by this policy, which discriminates in favor of the 
poor, the mechanics, the small farmers, and the working- 
men, of the country. We serve notice on the Democratic 
party, on all the supporters of this anti-democratic doc- 
trine of the equal taxation of every species of property 
according to its value, that we Republicans will never 
agree to the taxation of the little earnings of working- 
men at the same rate we tax the incomes of the Stewarts 
and the Astors, the great corporations and capitalists, of 
the country. We give the Democracy notice that we 
will never tax sugar, coffee, and tea at the same rates 
we tax silks and wines and brandies ; that we will never 
tax a gallon of milk as high as we tax a gallon of 
whiskey. We give the Democracy notice that we will 
not tax the tools of the mechanic, the horse of tlie dray- 
man, the little homes and farms of the poor, and the 
incomes of working-men needed for the support of them- 
selves and the support of their households. We Repub- 
licans will never consent to the putting of the burdens of 
the government equally on the small accumulations of 
the poor and the great capitals and large interests of the 
country. That is the position of the Republican party ; 
and it is a position in favor of the productive interests of 
the nation and the interests of the working-men : and we 



392 LIFE OF HENRY WH^SON. 

Republicans mean to stand by it, or fall by it ; live by it, 
or die by it. Every laboring-man in America, every- 
mechanic, every farmer, and every business-man, who 
desires to develop the mighty resources of this country, 
and carry it upward and onward in a career of power and 
prosperity, should trample upon this democratic' doctrine 
of equal taxation, which is against labor, and in favor of 
capital ; against the loyal, and in favor of the disloyal, 
portions of the land." 

Inured to steady and persistent intellectual labor, 
Mr. Wilson finds in it his chief delight. To him idle- 
ness is misery. He is a working-man, who believes in 
actual work : and his system being, by his temperate 
habits, always in good working-order, he turns off work 
with astonishing ease and celerity ; work, too, that has 
a meaning and a purpose, — guiding legislators in their 
course, and enricliing the historical literature of his 
country. In addition to his official and public labors 
this year (1868), he publislied a handsome volume of 
four hundred and sixty-seven pages, entitled " The His- 
tory of the Reconstruction Measures of the Thirty-ninth 
and Fortieth Congresses, 1865-1868. By Henry Wil- 
son." In this important work the author traces vividly 
the course of legislation during those eventful years 
which followed the collapse of the Rebellion, and the 
contest between Congress and the president on the vari- 
ous questions growing out of the reconstruction of the 
Confederate States. " My purpose in this work," the 
author says, " has been to narrate with brevity and im- 
partiality this legislation of Congress, and to give the 
positions, opinions, and feelings of the actors in these 
great measures of legislation." In the treatment of his 
subject he brings forward in projjrid persond the differ- 



RECONSTEUCTION MEASURES. 893 

ent speakers, — Sumner, Trumbull, Fcssenden, Wilson, 
Davis, Hendricks, Howe, and others, — and presents 
them as they introduced, opposed, or advocated meas- 
ures in the legislative chambers. The very words of the 
disputants are given, which imparts dramatic interest to 
the subject, and makes interesting what otherwise might, 
except to a statesman, prove dull reading. The com- 
batants stand forth prominently on the canvas : the blow 
of every champion is made manifest. When the author 
himself speaks, the style is manly, clear, and forcible, — 
an evident advance upon his former record as a writer. 
To the student of our political liistory this book is in- 
valuable, bringing the subject - matter on the great 
questions before the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Con- 
gresses, which runs through several thousand pages of 
" Tiie Congressional Globe," into the compass of a single 
portable volume. The reconstruction of the Confederate 
States demanded comprehensive views of the condition 
of the country, generous sympathies, and decisive action ; 
and strong men who took the lead in legislation through 
the war came up with fearless front to resist the policy 
of the executive, and save the nation from the rule of 
rebels. As an impartial record of tliis struggle by one 
who himself bore no unimportant part in it, Mr. Wil- 
son's book will doubtless ever hold a prominent place in 
legislative history. 

The home of Mr. Wilson was enlivened on the 25th of 
December, 1868, by the marriage of Lieut. Alexander 
L. Smith, who was in Gen. Slierman's army when lie 
made his grand march to the sea, and Miss Annette 
Howe, a daughter of one of Mrs. Wilson's brothers, and 
an estimable young lady. 

During the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses Mr. 



394 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

Wilson was steadily engaged in framing and carrying 
important measures for the public good. Among them 
may be mentioned a bill to amend the elective franchise 
of the District of Columbia ; a bill for the reduction 
of the army ; a bill to equalize distribution of banking 
capital ; a joint resolution as to the management of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, — of the Fortieth ; and bills to 
establish a line of steamships ; to appoint a commission to 
examine claims of loyal persons for supplies ; to grant two 
million acres of land for education in the District of Co- 
lumbia ; to remove disabilities from persons engaged in 
the Rebellion ; to grant increase of pensions to widows 
of officers; and joint resolutions granting Lincoln Hos- 
pital to Columbia Hospital for women, and respecting 
pay of enlisted men, — of the Forty-first Congress. On 
these and many other measures Mr. Wilson made remarks 
evincing great legislative experience and ability. The 
pages of " The Congressional Globe " bear constant 
testimony to his senatorial industry and efficiency. His 
eyes were ever open to watch, his tongue was ever 
ready to defend, the rights of the injured and op- 
pressed. No senator ever framed and carried so many 
bills through the Senate of the United States as Mr. 
Wilson ; and some of them are the most important 
ever enacted in this country. In his management of 
measures in the Senate he has shown the practical good 
sense 'of a sound and accomplished statesman. When 
he has found it impossible to carry a measure as 
first presented, he has been willing to accept such modi- 
fication or substitute as might secure its passage ; 
consenting willingly that another should receive the 
credit, if by any change or compromise the end could be 
obtained. His idea has been, that one step in advance 



HIS SUCCESS AS A STATESMAN. 395 

is better than no progress : so that, while others have in- 
sisted on the whole or nothing, lie has accepted the best lie 
could at the tijne secure ; and, gaining that, he has often 
found himself in a position to gain the whole. His bill 
for the soldiers' bounties finally appeared in another form, 
under another name, and for a lower sum than he pro- 
posed ; but he rejoiced that eighty millions were secured, 
though his original measure was defeated. 

His method is to throw himself out of the question, 
and to support a measure on its own merits : and this, in 
part, accounts for his success ; for a statesman attempting 
to carry himself with his measures generally finds him- 
self overborne by the burden. 



CHAPTER XX. 

DEATH OF MRS. WILSON. VISIT TO EUROPE. WRIT- 
INGS. NOMINATION. CHARACTER. 

Mrs. Wilson's Death and Character. — Mrs. Ames's Opinion. — Visit to Europe. — 
American Missionary Society. — Rise and Fall of the Slave-Power. — Ex- 
tract. — Nomination as Vice-President. — Letter of Acceptance. — Address 
at Boston. — Character as an Orator, Statesman, Author, and Man. 

TN May, 1870, Mr. Wilson was brought into profound 
-L affliction by the decease of his beloved wife, who for 
many months had been sinking under an incurable dis- 
ease. At the close of the 28th she passed peacefully 
away ; and those who stood around her dying-bed then 
realized the meaning of the words, " He giveth his 
beloved sleep." 

An address was made at her funeral in the church by 
the Rev. Edmund Dowse; and her remains, in a. casket 
covered with flowers, and followed by a long concourse 
of sincere mourners, were borne to the Dell-park Ceme- 
tery, where they repose beside tiiose of her only son. 

Mrs. Wilson was a woman of rare gentleness, earnest 
in purpose, unassuming in manner, ever blessing those 
around her by her words and deeds of love. Early in 
life she became a Christian ; and she united with the 
Congregational church at Natick on the fifth day of 
December, 18.52. Whether moving in the fashionable 



CHARACTER OF MRS. WILSON. 397 

society at Washington, or in the quiet circle of her home, 
she was ever a bright ornament of the doctrines she pro^ 
fessed. Her sufferings, though severe, she bore without 
a murmur or complaint, and shed the light of a sanctified 
and loving heart upon her friends and kindred to the last. 
In her elevation, she did not cast off, as many do, the 
companions of early days ; and they will always bear 
among the richest treasures of the memory the smile and 
the tear of her sympathy and affection. 

" Into the sacred privacy of that wifely devotion which 
she always manifested," says one who knew her ex- 
cellence, " we may not intrude : but it can at least be 
said, that she was all that the heart could desire a 
Christian wife to be ; and eternity alone can reveal how 
great was her influence upon the companion of her life, 
whose feet she, more than any other human instrumen- 
tality, led to the cross of Clirist." 

Another writer said of her, " For thirty years she has 
been of rare service to her husband in all sweet and 
wifely qualities. Of true instincts, unobtrusive piety, un- 
tiring benevolence, and equal temperament, ever a lover 
of justice, she was alike guide and inspirer to her hus- 
band, whose long, distinguished, and honorable career is, 
in no small degree, due to her discreet and loving co- 
operation." 

Her character is thus portrayed by Mrs. Mary Clemmer 
Ames : — 

" Within the last week, the body of one has been laid 
in her native earth whose lovely presence will long be 
missed in Washington. Mrs. Wilson, the wife of Senator 
Wilson, went out from among us in the fair May days ; 
and the places wliich have known her here so long and so 
pleasantly, will know her, save in memory, no more for- 

34 



398 LITE OP HENBY WILSON. 

ever. She was a gentle, Christian woman. I have never 
yet found words rich enough to tell all that such a woman 
is. My pen lingers lovingly upon her name. I would 
fain say something of her who now lives beyond the meed 
of all human praise that would make her example more 
beautiful and enduring to the living. For, in profounder 
intellectual development resulting from wider culture and 
larger opportunity, are we in no danger of losing sight of 
those graces of the spirit, which, however exalted her fate, 
must remain to the end the supreme charm of woman? 
There- is nothing in all the universe so sweet as a Chris- 
tian woman ; as she who has received into her heart, till 
it shines forth in her character and life, the love of the 
divine Master. 

" Such a woman was Mrs. Wilson in this gay capital. 
When great sorrow fell upon her, and ceaseless suffering, 
the light from the heavenly places fell upon her face : 
with an angel patience, and a childlike smile, and an un- 
faltering faith, she went down into the valley of shadows. 
She possessed a keen and wide intelligence. She was 
conversant with public questions, and interested in all 
those movements of the day in which her husband takes 
so prominent a part. Retiring by nature, she avoided 
instinctively all ostentatious display ; but, where help and 
encouragement were needed by another, the latent power 
of her character sprang into life, and then she proved 
herself equal to great executive effort. No one can praise 
her so eloquently as he who loved her and knew her best. 
To hear Senator Wilson speak of his wife when he taught 
her, a little girl in school ; when he married her, ' the 
loveliest girl in all the county ; ' when he received into 
his heart the fragrance of her daily example ; when he 
watched over her dying, only to marvel at the endurance 



CHARACTER OF MRS. WILSON. 399 

and sweetness and sunshine of her patience, — is to learn 
what a force for spiritual development, what a ceaseless 
inspiration, was this wife to her husband. Precious to 
those who live is the legacy of such a life." 

Mr. Wilson regarded his wife and always spoke of her 
with most affectionate tenderness. He fully appreciated 
and revered her excellences. To him her word and her 
wishes were sacred. Her departure filled his heart with 
unutterable grief; and the dark cloud of that bereave- 
ment still casts its shadow over his pathway. But he has 
the hope of the Christian, which alone can give the cloud 
a " silver lining." 

In a letter in response to an invitation to the " Gather- 
ing of the Howe Family," held in Framingham, Aug. 31, 
1871, he thus touchingly alludes to her: — 

" I regret, and shall long continue to regret, that I was 
not permitted on that occasion to mingle with tliose who 
bear the name of one endeared to me by the holiest and 
tenderest ties of earth ; of one of the purest and loveli- 
est spirits that ever blessed kindred and friends by her 
presence, or left, in passing through death to a higher life, 
more precious memories." 

In the memorial of that meeting the author says, " Mrs. 
Wilson was a lady of unusual mental and personal attrac- 
tions, blending grace with dignity in manner, and orna- 
menting, both in private and in public life, the doctrines 
of her Lord and Master." 

None but him that has followed the light of the house- 
hold to the silent grave can know the desolation of a de- 
serted home. To relieve his mind from the sad memo- 
ries which every object tended to awaken, Mr. Wilson 
decided to spend the summer of 1871 abroad. Leaving 
New York in " The Scotia " on the 7th of June, he 



400 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

had a prosperous voyage across the Atlantic, and was 
somewhat " lionized " by the passengers, as one of them 
has written, on the way. The writer adds, " He spoke to 
me with feeling of the virtues of one whom he had lost, 
of her sickness and her death ; showed me the picture 
of her face ; and expressed the hope that he should meet 
her in the skies." 

Mr. Wilson did not visit Europe to study art, to gain 
receptions, or to hunt for kings. He was, however, 
kindly received by Mr. Gladstone, Thomas Hughes, and 
other eminent men. He had the pleasure of spending 
several days in the British Parliament, as well as in 
the French National Assembly, and of listening to the 
debates. The plain and sensible style of speaking of 
the former body he admired. With the exception of the 
strong and fervid Spurgeon, the English preachers did 
not please him, their manner being too monotonous and 
scholastic. 

He travelled over six thousand miles in Europe, visiting 
Amsterdam, Berlin (where he was cordially received), 
Vienna, and many other cities ; noticing the manners and 
customs of the people, and, as far as possible, the working 
of the different educational, religious, and political sys- 
tems. 

Never had the liberal institutions of America appeared 
more glorious to him than when, after this survey of 
foreign life, he breathed again the air of freedom. Dur- 
ing his abseuce he wrote once a week to Mrs. Howe, 
the mother of his departed wife, who now, though over 
eighty years of age, presides over his household with 
dignity and grace. 

This was the memorial-year of the American Missionary 
Association ; and at the meeting in Hartford, Oct. 24, Mr. 



AMERICAN MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION. 401 

"Wilson made a brief and vigorous address, in which he 
presented his belief in our common brotherhood, and his 
view of the work to be done by the philanthropists of 
America : — 

" God has given us the care of this magnificent conti- 
nental empire, broad and grand. It is ours, — ours to 
develop and improve : the responsibility is with us, — with 
the people of these United States. These poor black men 
at the South need our prayers and our labor ; they need 
education, moral culture, and elevation. And they are 
not the only ones who need it : there are thousands 
of others, who have been referred to in the admirable 
address to which we have just listened, — others coming 
from the Eastern world. Our gateways are open on the 
Atlantic and on the Pacific coast ; and people will come 
here. I would bind my heart and hand, and what little 
I have of property, and the aspirations of my soul, to 
elevate humanity. Every human being who steps on 
the soil of the North-American republic, — no matter 
where he comes from, nor what blood runs in his veins, 
nor what language he speaks, — he is a man : God 
made him, and our Lord and Master Jesus Christ died 
for him as well as for us; and it is our duty to lift 
him up. It is our duty to elevate all classes and con- 
ditions of men who come to our shores. God knows to- 
night there is a mighty work to do. Look over the broad 
land to-day, and what do we see ? It is not alone the 
poor negro, whose mind for long centuries has been closed 
against education and culture. Look at the poor white 
people of the South, who were trampled down when the 
black men were trampled down. Look at the master 
class; look at the Ku-Kluxes : they dishonor human 
nature to-night. I tell you, friends, we have a work to 



402 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

do ill the South, not only for the black race, but for our 
own white race. Slavery is gone : but it has left passions, 
prejudice, and ignorance ; and it is for us to remove 
them. 

" Look at our own country, — whole sections of it dis- 
honored every day. Men abuse public stations, dishonor 
their names, and degrade their country. We have exam- 
ples of this before us to-day that astonish the world. Edu- 
cation will not cure this entirely. We want, with our 
education, a great deal of moral culture. We want the 
heart cultivated as well as the head. This is the great 
want of the times. 

" I would make this republic an honest example to 
all nations. To every philanthropist, to every humble 
Christian, — I would say to all such, that, among all the 
benevolent associations of our country, this is one of the 
best, and should have our contributions, our generous 
support, and our prayers in our closets on bended knees." 

In the early part of this present year (1872) Mr. Wilson 
published the first volume, containing six hundred and 
seventy pages in royal octavo, of " The History of the 
Rise and Fall of the Slave-Power in America." 

It is indeed refreshing, now that the clamor of war has 
subsided and the smoke of the battle-fields rolled away, to 
sit calmly down in the sunlight of peace, and trace the 
progress of that malignant power which grew with the 
nation's growth ; which fastened on the body politic, 
until it perished in the very wounds it had itself in- 
flicted. Human servitude was the cause of our calamity 
as a nation ; and, in rising up from those calamities, 
we look back upon them as upon some fearful dream. 
With consummate ability, Mr. Wilson, in this portion 
of his work, presents the origin, progi-ess, dominafion, 



THE SLAVE-POWEH IN AMERICA. 403 

of this power in America, up to its Texan victory in 
1844 ; and in the two succeeding volumes, to be pub- 
lished in 1873-4, will describe its arrogant assumptions 
up to 1861, and then its mighty struggle for existence, 
till its final overthrow and extinction in the surrender of 
the rebel arms, and reconstruction of the rebel States. 
No man living has higher qualifications for such a work 
than Mr. Wilson. With accurate knowledge of our na- 
tional history ; with more than thirty years' experience 
as a legislator ; with an intimate personal acquaintance 
with the prominent political leaders of that period ; with 
views enlarged by years of meditation on the theme, — 
he brings to the execution of this great work accom- 
plishments which must render it, when completed, one 
of the most valnable contributions to American history 
ever made. Through the first volume the hand of the 
master is visible on every page ; and, although the mas- 
ter is of necessity a partisan, he has, in general, risen 
above the spirit of partisanship, and ascribed honor to 
whom honor is due. 

" Of the living and of -the dead," he says, " I have 
written as though I were to meet them in the presence 
of Him whose judgments are ever sure." To the Chris- 
tian patriot the author's constant reference to the hand 
of God in the evolution of our national destiny is as 
satisfactory as it is in itself just and philosophical. Tliis, 
he says, in closing his first volume, should be " a per- 
petual inspiration in the darkest hour, a perennial source 
of faith and hope, of consolation and of courage," " This 
work," says an able writer, " must take first rank among 
the liistorical productions of the nineteentli century; and 
it will give to the author an additional claim upon tlio 
consideration of his couuti-vnit'n that he has written so 



404 LIFE OF HEKRY WILSON. 

well of that work in which he was one of the chief actors, 
thus winning for himself the position of the scholar and 
tlie historian, in addition to that of the politician and the 
statesman. He and others have done that which deserves 
to be well told ; and he has told it well. His words, like 
his works, will be immortal, — the just reward of the ex- 
cellence of both." 

As an example of the author's imaginative power, and 
vigor of his style, the closing page of his chapter on 
" The Amistad " captives may be cited. It will be re- 
membered that in 1839 these Africans, fifty- two in 
number, rose upon the captain and the crew of " The 
Amistad," took the vessel, and then, through their igno- 
rance of navigation, were landed and imprisoned at New 
London. The administration would have returned them 
to the hands of the slave-trader ; but, through the hu- 
mane exertions of Mr. Lewis Tappan and his friends, 
the captives, after a sharp contest in the courts, were 
set free. After stating the whole case with perspicuity 
and force, the author says, — 

" In all the acts of slavery's grim tragedy, there have 
been few scenes which presented more elements of in- 
terest than that of ' The Amistad ' captives. With two 
continents and the wide Atlantic for a theatre ; with tlie 
robber-chiefs of Africa, the slave-pirates of the ocean, the 
representatives of a European monarchy and an Ameri- 
can republic, for actors, seemingly engaged in a common 
cause, and inspired by a common spirit, — it presented 
through the whole, with dramatic variety and force, the 
strangest contrasts and the most unlooked-for and con- 
tradictory combinations. It presented barbarism in its 
most rei)iil.ive and rudest aspect, and Christianity in 
its most attractive and lovely attitude. It began with the 



NOMINATED AS VICE-PRESIDENT. 405 

midnight hunt for captives in the wilds of Africa: it 
closed by Christian men and women sending and accom- 
panying these captives back to Africa to plant churches 
and schools among their benighted countrymen. Through 
the whole, however, the one dark and hideous fact stands 
out, — that slavery is essentially the same, its adherents 
substantially alike. A system of violence impatient of 
all restraints, whether of reason or of conscience, human- 
ity or religion, the laws of the heart or the laws of the 
State, it seems mainly intent on compassing its own ends 
by whatever means and at whatever hazards. It was the 
same in Africa and in America ; in the barracoon and in 
the middle passage ; under a monarchy or in a republic ; 
in a Pagan, Protestant, or Catholic country." 

At the Republican Convention held in Philadelphia last 
June, Mr. Wilson received the nomination for vice-presi- 
dent of the United States. Mr. Colfax, who was a 
personal friend of Mr. Wilson, had, in a private letter, 
signified his intention of declining a renomination, when 
the latter allowed his name to be presented. The vote 
for these gentlemen in the convention was very close ; 
when Virginia changed twenty of her votes from John F. 
Lewis to Mr. Wilson, and made sure his nomination. On 
the reception of the despatch announcing it in the Senate, 
Mr. Colfax came forward and heartily congratulated his 
friend on the result. Among many congratulations, the 
following was received from Philadelphia, which doubt- 
less is the general sentiment of the people ot color, for 
whom Mr. Wilson has labored so long and effectually : — 

PniLADELPniA, June 6, 1872. 
The colored working-men of the country send you 
their congratulations, and second your nomination ; and 



406 . LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

will march in solid columns to the polls in November, 
and cast their votes for the representative laboring-man 
of the American nation. 

(Signed) Isaac Myers, 

Pres. Colored National Labor Union. 

Speaking of the nomination, " The New-York Trib- 
une " said, — 

" Henry Wilson is a working-man, and life-long Re- 
publican, who has passed through thirty years of political 
contests without a question of his devotion to principle, 
or a stain upon his integrity." 

His letter of acceptance points briefly to the leading 
features of the past, present, and future policy of the 
Republican party. 

HON. HENRY WILSON'S LETTER ACCEPTING THE 
NOMINATION. 

Washington, June 13, 1872. 
To the Hon. Thomas Settle and others, President and Vice- 
Presidents of the National Republican Convention held at Phila- 
delphia on the 5th and 6th of the present month. 

Gentlemen, — Your note of the 10th instant, convey- 
ing to me the action of the convention in placing my 
name in nomination for the office of Vice-President of 
the United States, is before me. I need not give yon 
the assurance of my grateful appreciation of the high 
honor conferred upon me by this action of the Fifth 
National Convention of the Republican party. Sixteen 
years ago, in the same city, was held the first meeting 
of the men who, amid the darkness and doubts of that 
hour of slaveholding ascendency and aggression, had as- 
sembled in a national convention to confer with eacli 



LETTER ACCEPTING HIS NOMINATION. 407 

other on tlie exigencies to which that fearful domination 
had brought their country. After a full conference, the 
highest point of resolve they could reach, the most tliey 
dared to recommend, was the avowed purpose to pro- 
hibit the existence of slavery in the Territories. Last 
week the same party met by its representatives from 
thirty-seven States and ten Territories at the same great 
centre of wealth, intelligence, and power, to review the 
past, take note of the present, and indicate its line'^of 
action for the future. As typical facts, headlands of the 
nation's history, there sat on its platform, taking an hon- 
orable and prominent part in its proceedings, admitted 
on terms of perfect equality to the leading hotels of the 
city, not only the colored representative of the race 
which were ten years before in abject slavery, but one of 
the oldest and most prominent of the once despised abo- 
litionists, to whom was accorded as to no other the 
warmest demonstration of popular regard and esteem ; an 
ovation not to him alone, but to the cause he had so ably 
and so many years represented, and to men and women, 
living and dead, who toiled through long years of obloquy 
and self-sacrifice for the glorious fruition of that hour. 
It hardly needed the brilliant summary of its platform to 
set forth its illustrious achievements. The very presence 
of those men was alone significant of the victories 
achieved, the progress already made, and the great dis- 
tance which the nation had travelled between the years 
1856 and 1872. But, grand as has been its record, the 
Republican party rests not on its past alone : it looks to 
tlie future, and grapples with its problems of duty and 
of danger. It proposes, as objects of its immediate 
accomplishment, " complete liberty and exact equality for 
all ; " the enforcement of the recent amendments to the 



408 LIFE OF HENEY WILSON. 

National Coustitiitioii ; the reform in the civil service ; 
the national domain to be set apart for homes for the 
people ; the adjustment of the duties on imports, so as to 
secure remunerative wages to labor ; the extension of 
bounties to all soldiers and sailors who in line of duty 
became disabled ; the continual and careful encourage- 
ment and protection of voluntary immigration, and 
guarding with a zealous care the rights of adopted citi- 
zens ; the abolition of the franking privilege, and the 
speedy reduction of the rates of postage ; the reduction 
of the national debt and rates of interest, and resump- 
tion of specie payment ; the encouragement of American 
commerce and of ship-building ; the' suppression of 
violence, and the protection of the ballot-box. It also 
placed on record the opinions and purposes of the party 
in favor of amnesty ; against all forms of repudiation ; 
and indorsed the humane and peaceful policy of the 
administration in regard to the Indians. But, while 
clearly defining and distinctly announcing the policy of 
the Republican party on these questions of practical 
legislation and administration, the convention did not 
ignore the great social problems which are pressing their 
claims for solution, and which demand the most careful 
study and wise consideration. Foremost stands the 
labor question. Concerning the relations of capital and 
labor, the Republican party accepts the duty of so 
shaping legislation as to secure full protection and the 
amplest field for capital, and for labor, the creator of 
capital, the largest opportunities, and a just share of 
mutual profits of tliese two great servants of civilization. 
To woman too, and her new demands, it extends the 
hand of grateful recognition, and proffers it a most 
respectful inquiry. It recognizes her noble devotion to 



LETTER ACCEPTING HIS NOMINATION. 409 

the country and freedom, welcomes lier admission to 
wider fields of usefulness, and commends her demands 
for additional rights to the calm and careful considera- 
tion of the nation ; to guard well what has already been 
secured, to work out faithfully and wisely what is now 
in hand, and to consider the questions which are looming 
up to view but a little way before us. The Republican 
party is to-day what it was in the gloomy years of 
slavery, rebellion, and reconstruction, — a national neces- 
sity. It appeals therefore, for support, to the patriotic 
and liberty-loving ; to the just and humane ; to all who 
dignify labor ; to all who would educate, elevate, and 
lighten the burdens of the sons and daughters of toil. 
With its great record and the work still to be done under 
the great soldier whose historic renown and whose suc- 
cessful administration for the last three years begat such 
popular confidence, the Republican party may confi- 
dently, in the language of the convention you represent, 
start on a new march to victory. Having accepted 
thirty-six years ago the distinguished doctrines of the 
Republican party of to-day ; having, during the years 
of that period, for their advancement, subordinated all 
other issues, acting in and co-operating with political 
organizations with whose leading doctrines I sometimes 
had neither sympathy nor belief; having labored inces- 
santly for many years to found and build up the Repub- 
lican party ; and having, during its existence, taken a 
humble part in its grand work, — I gratefully accept the 
nomination thus tendered ; and shall endeavor, if it shall 
be ratified by the people, faithfully to perform the duties 
it imposes. 

Respectfully yours, 
(Signed) Henry Wilson. 



410 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

At a grand ratification meeting held in Faucuil Hall 
on the 22d of June, 1872, iu which able speeches were 
made by Judge Hoar and Gen. Butler, Mr. Wilson, 
being presented amidst a storm of cheers and -applause, 
in substance said, — 

" Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens, — I thank you 
for this kind welcome, and will not detain you at this late 
hour by any remarks of mine. I hardly know why I was 
invited here. The doctrines of your platform I have pro- 
claimed to hundreds of tliousands of men in nearly thirty 
States of the Union. I gave an unhesitating support to 
Gen. Grant during the war, and I have given an unhesi- 
tating support to his administration during the past three 
years (applause) ; and I assure you to-night, if you 
need the assurance, that I shall give an unhesitating sup- 
port to his re-election to the presidency. (Applause.) 
As for myself, I leave it to my friends, personal and 
political, in Massachusetts and in the country ; and I am 
sure, whatever my friends may say, that those who do 
not agree with me politically will not accuse me of any 
want of fidelity to myself. I only say to you at this 
hour, that I trust you, men of Boston and of Massachu- 
setts, will this year, and in the future, be as true as you 
have been for the past twelve years for the cause of the 
country and the cause of libei'ty. No matter who may 
be the candidate at Baltimore, — whether it be Horace 
Greeley or any other man, — you will meet in this canvass 
tlie Democratic party of the United States. You have 
met the party before ; you have defeated it before. You 
can, and I have no doubt whatever you will, defeat it in 
the coming election. Listen to no voice. You remem- 
ber Republicans said a few years ago in Virginia, ' We 
will put up a Republican for governor, and we will have 



ADDRESS IN FANEUIL HALL. 411 

a Rtpublicau administration with the support of the 
Democratic party.' He went into power. The Repub- 
licans were defeated ; and he became — what he knew lie 
was before — the mere instrument of the Democratic par- 
ty in Virginia. Republicans in Western Virginia joined 
the Democratic party; and to-day the question is submit- 
ted in a constitutional convention, whether the black men 
shall have the right to vote or not. Republicans joined 
Democrats, and restored the Democracy to power, in 
Tennessee ; and the school system, under which there 
were a hundred and ninety thousand children in the 
schools in that State, was broken down. Republicans 
joined the Democrats in Missouri ; and Frank Blair, who 
represents Democracy, sits in the Senate of the United 
States. The experiment made shows, that, when they 
join issue, the Republicans go to the Democratic party : 
that party would never come to them. Stand, then, I 
say, by the Republican platform, by the Republican can- 
didates. (Applause.) Continue and hold and secure 
what we fought for in war ; and, in addition to all, march 
with events, keep pace with human progress, bearing the 
flag of Republican civilization and improvement in our 
country, and our efforts will be blessed for the good of 
our country and the world." (Applause.) 

Of his title to the suffrage of the colored people of 
America, Mr. Garrison thus, in a recent letter, speaks : — 

" During thirty-six years of public life he has made 
the freedom of the race, so long peeled and trodden 
down, paramount to all other political considerations. 
Instead of persistently shunning antislavery meetings, 
he was a frequent attendant upon them, and freely par- 
ticipated in their proceedings. Now that he has been 
deservedly nominated by the Republican party for the 



412 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

vice-presidency of the United States, and, if elected, 
may possibly, in the turn of events, be the acting presi- 
dent, it should be a matter of pride and gratitude on the 
part of colored voters to give him their united suf- 
frages." 

As an orator Mr. Wilson is strong and vehement, 
rather than bland and graceful. He cares little for the 
rhetorician's rules, and never turns aside for ornament ; 
but he has studied the best English and Amei-ican models, 
— Pitt, Burke, Sheridan, Adams, Wirt, Webster, — and 
uses elevated, and what miglit be termed forensic, diction. 
Grasping his subject firmly, he presents his propositions 
with distinctness, and defends them by a constant appeal 
to facts. His arguments are built on stubborn facts ; his 
illustrations are historical facts ; liis weapons, offensive 
and defensive, in debate, are facts. His memory is an 
inexhaustible magazine of facts ; and out they come as 
solid sliot from a columbiad, to break up the intrench- 
ment of his enemy. 

His great speeches in reply to Mr. Hammond, in reply 
to Mr. Butler, as well as those on the Pacific Railroad, 
the Lecompton Constitution, and the Crittenden Com- 
promise, consist mainly of statements, or citations, of 
matters of fact. With some speakers, such a liberal use 
of facts would be intolerable ; but with Mr. Wilson they 
are so pertinently selected, so logically connected, and 
so earnestly presented, that they, in general, command 
profound attention. 

With kindly sympathies and an honest purpose, with 
an open countenance, a clear, strong voice, and animated 
gestures, Mr. Wilson always commands the attention of a 
popular assembly ; and his words, wlien more finished 
speakers fail, are greeted with applause. He finds the 



MR. WILSON AS AN ORATOR. 413 

way to the heart of the people ; and that is sometliing 
higher than any studied eloquence. 

He has made his loftiest record as a speaker in the 
Senate-chamber. In most of the stirring debates upon 
the questions which have agitated the country for the last 
seventeen years, he has taken a leading part. He has 
measured blades with most of the veteran champions of 
the South, — Toombs, Davis, Benton, Hammond, Butler, 
and Breckinridge, — and often gained the mastery. Many 
of his brief speeches here are models of forensic elo- 
quence ; and parts of some of them have already found 
their way into our reading-books. Of his speaking and 
his influence in the Senate, a letter-writer at Washing- 
ton, March 16, 1867, says, — 

"I had reckoned him a good worker on committees in 
Congress, an earnest and indefatigable stump-speaker 
in a political campaign, a faithful laborer in the cause of 
his party and his country in any sphere ; but I had cred- 
ited him with little eminence and little influence in the 
area of the Senate-chamber, where his plain common 
sense would come in contact with the eloquence of his 
colleague, the learning of Trumbull, the dignity of Fes- 
senden, or the acuteness of a dozen minds more brilliant 
than his. 

" But yesterday he rose to speak in the middle of the 
protracted debate on the Supplementary Reconstruction 
Bill ; and at once the great indifference disappeared. Sen- 
ators on every side turned from their papers and letters to 
listen ; and what Mr. Wilson had to say was attended to 
with a greater degree of interest and respect on the floor 
of the Senate itself than had been given to any thing which 
had fallen from the lips of Mr. Sumner, Mr. Sherman, 
Mr. Fessenden, or in fact of anybody else, since I have 



414 LIFE OF HENKY WILSON. 

been an observer in the galleries. Such a phenomenon 
must mean something : and, listening to the remarks of 
the Massachusetts senator myself, I found the explanation 
in the fact that he talked more directly to the matter in 
hand, with more of fact and less of theory, more of 
substance and less of ornament, than any other speaker 
who had taken part in the debate ; and so I concluded 
that Congress, if not also the country, on this subject of 
reconstruction at any rate, has had enough of rhetoric 
and enough of oratory, and has an appetite only for those 
plain facts of the need of the day which Mr. Wilson so 
forcibly urged." 

Had Mr. Wilson read more of the classic poets, his 
style might indeed have had more finish, but not, perhaps, 
more force. Great national crises demand of leaders, 
not smooth, rounded periods and rhetorical flourishes, 
but substantial facts, strong argument, and honest pur- 
poses : these Mr. Wilson has ; and hence the people hear 
him gladly. 

His reasoning is sustained by the argument of a con- 
sistent life ; and hence it comes home to the conscience, 
and is fraught with power. No man living has, perliaps, 
addressed so many people in America as Henry Wilson ; 
and none, perhaps, has spoken so few words that he would 
wish to have unsaid. On rising to speak before an audi- 
ence, his manly form, his honest, open, florid face, and 
sympathetic voice, bespeak for him a generous reception. 
The people see at once that " honesty, poverty, and politics 
have agreed with him ; and that a Congress-man can ignore 
crime, keep a clean palm, hold his Maker in remembrance, 
and yet wear a rosy, unclouded face." And thus he moves 
the masses to accept his counsels, and translate them into 
practice : and, if this be not eloquence, it is something 



MB. WILSON AS A STATESMAN. 415 

above eloquence ; it is, as Webster has averred, " action, 
— noble, sublime. Gad-like action." 

As a statesman, Mr. Wilson's views are broad and com- 
prehensive. The works of the immortal sages — Wash- 
ington, Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, Jay, Marshall, and 
others, who laid the foundation of our government — have 
been his life-long study ; and in their spirit and opinions 
his political education has been perfected. His inspira- 
tion has come, indeed, from a still higher source, — tlie 
instructions of tlie Son of Mary. The great principles of 
equality, fraternity, civil and religious freedom, and social 
progress, form the basis of his political system ; and, hav- 
ing strong confidence in the stability of popular govern- 
ment, he labors with invincible determination to defend 
those principles. Because he apprehends with such clear- 
ness the extent and bearing of a present exigency, and 
so quickly sees the tendency and the drift of things, it 
has been thought by some tliat his political views were 
superficial rather than profound. But a rapid river may 
be also deep and strong. Mr. Wilson is a thinker ; 
grasping as easily the broadest principle as the most 
restricted precept, and examining it under the light of 
past experience, of present utility, or of future good. 
His view of the slavery question from the outset, his 
forecast of the final issue, his legislation for the war, and 
his prediction of the grand result, most clearly manifest 
the scope as well as the accuracy of his vision. While 
Mr. Wilson is a sound and sagacious statesman, he at the 
same time possesses great administrative ability. He 
frames a bill witli remarkable precision, and carries it 
through its various stages with rare legislative skill up to 
its final passage. It has been said that more than half 
the legislation in Congress during the late war was done 



416 LIFE OF HENBY WILSON. 

by Massachusetts, and certainly enough of that by the 
military senator to entitle him to a grand historic position 
in the annals of the nation. 

The style of Mr. Wilson as a writer is characterized by 
perspicuity, force, and dignity. His figures, when they 
do occur, are striking ; his quotations from the poets apt 
and pertinent ; his pictures strongly drawn, and sharp in 
outline. He has no turn for wit or humor ; indeed, the 
subjects which he treats do not demand it. His periods 
are, in general, well-rounded and harmonious. His last 
work is his best ; and this, in point of diction, as well as 
in respect to accuracy of statement, logical connection, 
cogency of reasoning, clearness and scope of vision, and 
unity in construction, will rank with the writings of the 
best historians of America. 

As a man Mr. Wilson is large-hearted, liberal, intensely 
earnest, and sincere. He believes in human progress, 
and in the power of the people to perpetuate republican 
institutions. The means for doing this he clearly indi- 
cates in an able article on " The New Departure of the 
Republican Party," in " The Atlantic Monthly," Janu- 
ary, 1871, to be the education and the unification of the 
people. He is, and ever was, in liveliest sympathy with 
the working-classes. From them he sprang ; with them 
he has fought the battle for free labor ; and for their 
rights, their social and intellectual elevation, he has 
spent with cheerful heart his time, his money, and his 
mental energies. He sees with hopeful eye the prospec- 
tive grandeur of the United States, but feels that for it 
we must have a nobler educational system, a broader 
knowledge of the principles of our civil and political 
institutions, a better understanding and a closer appli- 
cation of the principles of Christianity to our public, 



I 



ME. WILSON AS A MAN. 417 

social, and private life. He is, therefore, the earnest 
friend of the public school, the university, the lyceum, 
the pulpit, and the press. No man in America has trav- 
elled more miles for public speaking, or addressed more 
people on public affairs ; no man is better acquainted 
with the genius and the spirit of the nation, from the 
workshop to the halls of Congress ; no man has labored 
more persistently to make the nation what it is, — than 
Henry Wilson : hence his opinions, wliether declared in 
public or in private, are regarded by men of every party 
with attention. Among the self-made men of this coun- 
try he stands pre-eminent, as a man magnificently made. 
Tliough reared among the intemperate, his tongue is un- 
contaminated by the touch of alcohol. Tliough wielding 
a vast patronage, his hand was never stained by bribery ; 
and his earnings he devotes to charity. Tliough breathing 
more than thirty years the infected atmosphere of politics, 
his heart is fresh, and freely beating for his fellow-man. 
Though rising, by stern regard to principle and by an in- 
domitable energy, from a low position to an enviable fame, 
his spirit is subdued and humble. His life, so marked 
by manly struggle, earnest words, and noble deeds, is, in 
some respects, a model for the young working-men of 
America. It has been developed by the principles of a 
Book which he received in boyhood ; and now, above 
the statesman and historian, he stands before the world, 
in the ripeness of manhood and the full maturity of 
intellectual vigor, as a Christian patriot. 

It is not by any means desired to present him as a 
perfect man, nor to claim for him any thing more than 
is justly due ; but so far as those grand elements which 
form true manhood go, so far as living sympathy with 
man as man, so far as a life unselfishly devoted to the 



418 LIFE OF HENRY WILSON. 

interests of the sous of toil and tlie victims of oppression, 
may be regarded, Mr. Wilson has a record that will hold 
its brightness when the memories of men more brilliant 
in exterior accomplishments shall have passed into obliv- 
ion. He is an intensely practical working-man : but 
work finds little room for outward graces ; yet the times 
demanded working-men, strong and fearless. He and 
his brave associates had a will to work ; and, as we said 
in the beginning, workers win. 

In person Mr. Wilson is robust and well-proportioned. 
He is five feet ten inches in heiglit, and weighs about a 
hundred and eighty pounds. With light complexion and 
a clear skin, his whole countenance glows with health and 
vigor. His eyes are quick and clear ; his forehead is broad 
and high. The portrait by Mr. Battre, from a photograph 
by Mr. Black, in this volume, presents his features with 
correctness ; but the marble bust of the sculptor Mil- 
more, introduced by a resolution of the General Court 
into the State Library in May, exhibits something more 
of the ideality and the lofty spirit by which his counte- 
nance is, in his happiest hours, irradiated. His whole 
frame is compact and solid, and, as yet, bears little indi- 
cation of the eventide of life. In dress and manner he 
is plain and unpretending, and, when at leisure, re- 
markably frank and open in his conversation. 

From boyhood he has sought wisdom as most men seek 
gain ; he has stood fearless for humaji rights in defiance 

Note. — His family, as has been stated, belonged to that excellent stock, the 
Scotch-Irish, who emigrated to New England in tlie beginning of the last cen- 
tury. The earliest form in which his family name appears in this country is 
Colbreatb ; evidently the same as Calbreath, a name of respectability in Scot- 
land. James Colbreath was baptized Sept. 19, 1725, at Newington, N.H. ; and 
from him is descended, through Winthrop, and Winthrop, jun., the subject of this 
memoir. 



my 27m 



MR. WILSON AS A MAN. 419 

of power ; he has borne an lionoral)lc part in guifling this 
nation through the perils of civil war, and through the 
equal perils that waited on peace ; he has spent his life 
in giving liberty to the slave, and in opening this conti- 
nent to free labor ; he has shown patriotism which no 
temptation could corrupt, and which no danger could 
shake : and, having so lived, Henry Wilson has deserved 
well of his country. 



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